Half the Sky
by christinaking
Summary: It looked as if a night of dark intent was coming, and not only a night, an age. Someone had better be prepared for rage. -Robert Frost (Established Demily, Teamfic)
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Note: This is back in the Labyrinthine/Serenus/Fata Morgana world. You don't have to read those first, but you might be lost if you don't. Especially Serenus...you can muddle through without the rest, probably. Just know that Emily and Derek have two children, Serena and Caleb. Emily still does contract work for the BAU, but Derek no longer works there. We're well into the future with this one - 2022.  
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_I've got the next two chapters sketched out, but I really don't know where I'm going to take it from there - many options! So we'll see! I also could only choose two genres, but I would definitely choose a third, friendship, if I could. This one is going to have a lot of Serena at the beginning, but don't worry, you'll get many doses of Demily, and the rest of the team. :)_

* * *

><p>Serena Morgan dressed quickly in the locker room after her last period PE class. In the months since she'd turned twelve, her body had changed dramatically, and she preferred to get out of her uniform and into her regular clothes as quickly and as alone as possible. She never participated in the conversations that went on during the walk from the fields or gym into the locker room. Most days she was able to at least change her shirt before anyone else was around; if she got really lucky, she could be fully dressed before anyone took notice of her.<p>

When her friends asked her what the rush was about, Serena told them, "I like to walk Caleb over to the afterschool program." This was true, she did like checking in with her little brother at the end of the school day, but that wasn't the real motivation for her hasty locker room behavior. The explanation satisfied her friends, though.

It wasn't like she was keeping any secrets from anyone about her obviously maturing body; she just wasn't quite that comfortable with it herself yet. It felt like it was just another thing that separated her from her peers, so she changed alone and tried to make it less glaringly obvious. She was halfway to her thirteenth birthday, she was five feet, seven inches tall, her hips were well-defined, and her mom was pretty regularly having to take her out to get new and bigger bras. All in all, with her long curly hair that still had the natural blond highlights, her more mature features and her height, she looked far older than twelve years old, far older than any other girl in seventh grade at Walden Country School. Far older than the vast majority of the eighth graders, even.

The changes with her body did have one benefit - at least now she didn't look so outlandishly young when she attended her classes at GW.

Towards the end of fifth grade, when she was eleven, she and her parents realized that there were very few online course options left for Serena anymore; her real interest was turning towards biology and chemistry and she wanted to get into a lab and take more advanced classes. Serena had never wanted to be labeled as a super genius, a kid in college, but she also knew she academically needed more and it was time.

She and her parents had met with the head of undergraduate admissions at George Washington University that April. Serena had her transcripts from all of the online community college courses she'd taken over the years, where she'd accumulated more than enough general education credits. She was confident and articulate in that meeting, along with the meetings that followed where she was interviewed and tested by several deans and program directors.

That summer she was permitted to take the chemistry course that was the prerequisite to the biochemistry classes she was most interested in. The students in the class were a lot like the teenagers her dad worked with - they didn't quite get her at first and were a little put off by how smart and how young she was, but then they realized that they could relate to her and she to them. Like everything else, the material came easy to her, and the professor quickly realized the class was no challenge for Serena. It became a bit of a contest for her chemistry professor along with another biochemistry professor to figure out where exactly the material would start getting challenging for Serena. She spent the majority of that summer learning lab procedures and operations and taking final exam after final exam in the undergraduate biochemistry program.

In the fall of sixth grade, she was allowed to enroll in a graduate level biochemistry course that met three mornings a week. It was harder work; still relatively easy, but it wasn't a course where she could skim through the textbook in a day or two and pass a final exam either. Serena loved it. Her mom dropped her off in the mornings, and, after class, her dad brought her back to Walden Country School so she could be with her peers. She had the same close group of girlfriends she'd had since preschool and happily joined them and her other classmates for French, PE, Art and other electives. She used the resource room at her school during the day to do her biochem homework, along with homework from her online psychology class. Her sixth grade year went well for her overall with this system, and she downplayed the fact that she was taking classes at a college.

Two things changed for her after sixth grade ended, though, and Serena, for the first time, was wondering if it might not be better to just give up the charade of being in a regular school.

The first happened before school was over the year before. A guest lecturer at GW, Dr. Brian Lamont, who had met Serena on several occasions and was the Director of Research at Inovax in Maryland, called one night to talk to her parents. He was interested in offering Serena the opportunity to be at their labs during the summer. She wouldn't be allowed near anything dangerous, but she would still get some great exposure to the field, especially on the research side. Serena eagerly accepted that offer, not expecting anything except learning new things to come of it.

She was eating lunch in Dr. Lamont's office her second day at Inovax, and flipping through online images of slides, looking at the organic structures of a new and far deadlier strain of Ebola Inovax was trying to develop an antigen vaccine for. The Ebola strain hadn't claimed the lives of many yet, the incidences had been pretty isolated in one part of Africa, but the world-wide implications were frightening and fatal.

Dr. Lamont looked at Serena as she looked at the slides. Serena felt the gaze and turned her eyes on Dr. Lamont. "A chimera?" asked Serena.

He smiled and shook his head slightly in amazement. "Is that what it looks like to you, that this was a strain created by man rather than naturally occurring in nature?"

"It's hard to tell. My instinct says yes. But I know why you're not have having much luck with an antigen vaccine."

Dr. Lamont stood up from his desk, his eyes wide, and came to stand next to Serena. "We haven't spent much time with it, to be honest. It's lower on our priorities right now, but I'm curious as to what you think."

Serena pointed at the computer screen, "See here? The slight shift in molecular structure when the temperature of the sample reaches 99.2 degrees? You can barely see it. But I think that's your problem. The first side effect of the vaccine is a low-grade fever. And that onset is before the the antigen vaccine goes to work. The strain mutates and turns the vaccine useless, at best. At worst, you're actually infecting people with the mutated strain."

"What is it like in your head, Serena? How do you see these things so quickly?" he asked incredulously.

Serena looked at him pensively. "It's hard to explain. When I see something like this and close my eyes, I see myself standing in a room of numbers or molecules or elements. Everything is three-dimensional and I can move things into the right place. Does that sound weird? "

Dr. Lamont laughed and put a hand on her shoulder. "No, it sounds brilliant."

The molecular structure she'd pointed out that day without giving it any thought was the most promising advancement they'd made towards a vaccine, and by August, it was looking like they might have a working sample. Serena really didn't want any acknowledgement for what she'd done, but then someone at Inovax had leaked her name and age to a reporter at The Washington Post.

That started as series of phone calls from the press. Serena was protected by a confidentially agreement her parents had signed with Inovax before she started, prohibiting her from talking with anyone about what she saw or did at Inovax, Still, that didn't stop Inovax from giving a statement, and it didn't stop her picture from appearing in the paper. It was her school picture from the year before; no one knew how the newspaper got it.

All of it might have blown over when school started that September, if not for the arrival of one Jacie Pritchard in their seventh grade class. Serena tried to have patience with the girl who had only ever had private tutors before, but whose father insisted she have a regular school experience that year. Jacie's father was a senator, an oil tycoon of billionaire status who turned his attention to politics ten years before and quickly worked his way up the ranks. Serena's parents greatly disagreed with his political views. His daughter had never been around kids her own age much. Jacie hadn't been with Serena since preschool, she didn't know how Serena loathed talking about her academics. And even when Serena told her that she'd prefer not to talk about it, Jacie kept right on pestering her. Jacie's social skills left a lot to be desired.

Jacie's favorite two topics to question Serena about were Serena's IQ, and Serena's relationship with Henry.

Henry LaMontagne was the quintessential heart throb of the seventh and eighth grade girls at Walden Country School, and he was nice to all of them, but as far as girls went, he mostly only paid attention to Serena. They'd been best friends since Serena came to live with Emily and Derek, and that friendship only ever got stronger.

Serena sighed and came back to the present as the rest of the girls filtered into the locker room. She sat down on a bench to tie her brown boots.

"Hey, Serena," said Lexi, her friend since preschool. "Are you studying after school or are you going down to the fields to watch soccer practice?"

Serena smiled at her friend. "Probably soccer practice."

"Of course she's going to soccer practice," said Jacie with an eye roll. "It's Henry practicing after all. The two of them are always together. Why is that Serena? Do you think he likes you for your brains or your boobs?"

Jacie looked around like she expected laughter for her statement; she got none. The girls around them in the locker room glared at Jacie and smiled understandingly at Serena.

And Serena did the thing she'd done for the past five weeks, ever since Jacie arrived at their school: She ignored her. Serena smiled at Lexi, "I'm going to go check in with Caleb. See you at the field!"

Serena let Jacie's words go as she quickly walked across the school grounds to the second grade classrooms. Caleb emerged moments later with a smile on his face. He ran right up to Serena. "Nena! I fed the chickens today, and one chicken chased me. It was so funny!"

Serena smiled at her little brother. She couldn't help smiling when she was near Caleb. She couldn't help smiling when she was anywhere near anyone in her family, actually. But Caleb was a little different. He was the perfect combination of her parents, Derek's face, but Emily's eyes. Not only that, but he raised his eyebrows like Fran, their nana. His facial expressions were often perfect copies of the other members of their family; his half smile was sometimes Rossi and sometimes Hotch, and Jack; when he opened his eyes wide, depending on the situation, Serena was reminded of either Spencer or Penelope. Sometimes he'd squint his eyes like Will and Henry could. And when he laughed loudly and threw back his head, it was all JJ.

When she was with Caleb, she felt like everyone that mattered the most to her was right there with her.

"Sounds like it was a good day, Caleb!"

"It was!"

Serena put her arm around Caleb's shoulders and walked him towards the aftercare program at their school. "Remember, Will or JJ will be picking us up this evening. Daddy is taking Mommy out for her birthday,"

Caleb laughed. "My JJ's house!"

Though Caleb had stopped referring to JJ as "My JJ" for the most part when he was about five years old, every once in awhile it still slipped out.

"That's right, Caleb," Serena said with a smile on her face as she lead Caleb into the aftercare building, "Your JJ's house. I'll see you in a couple of hours. I'm going to go down to watch Henry's soccer practice."

* * *

><p>Derek Morgan arrived home in the afternoon on the day before Emily's birthday. He found Emily sitting on the couch, surrounded by paperwork, watching CNN.<p>

"Have you heard about this?" she asked, pointing at the television.

Derek had, on the radio on his drive home. He knew what was going on in Georgia. Three people who had gone to a hospital for flu-like symptoms had up and vanished without a trace.

"Has the BAU been called?" he asked Emily. She was putting in 25-30 hours a week at headquarters now, primarily working for the BAU doing background work on cases and helping Penelope when the team traveled. She would know.

"Yes, by a police officer in Atlanta who refused to give his name. That's the part that's freaking me out. Hotch was told by the Section Chief not to touch it. Ordered, actually. As in, 'You take the jet to investigate and all of your careers are over.'"

Derek felt goosebumps on his skin. He'd been working with disadvantaged youth rebuilding houses for the almost four years now, but things like Emily just said still made his adrenaline kick in. Something strange as hell was going on, just like it had been for awhile now. The country was in a larger political divide than ever with two extreme parties clamoring for control of the government. There had been historic government shut downs in the previous few years, so much so that Emily had actually done work at the BAU for free for a couple of months when funding for everything except the most essential positions had been frozen. Still, he couldn't do anything about it, and he hadn't arranged for the kids to go home with JJ and Will to sit and brood about potential government conspiracies. Tomorrow was Emily's birthday, and tonight she was all his.

He gathered up her papers and set them in a pile on the end table, then reached over and took the remote gently from Emily's hand. He turned off the TV. "It's your birthday, Em. Let's let it go for now, okay?"

And Emily, like she was so good at doing, shut down the thought process of possible conspiracies and smiled at him. "When are our dinner reservations?"

"We've got about three hours, actually. What on earth could we possibly do for three hours?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

Emily laughed and leaned forward to grab the buckle on the front of his belt. She started undoing it as she murmured, "I have quite a few ideas."

* * *

><p>Serena sat on the bleachers at the soccer field at Walden Country School and watched Henry completely shred every defense the coach threw at him. Henry was a left-footed striker, a term that had only come to mean anything to Serena a year before. when Henry was in seventh grade, and private high school coaches started showing up at practices and games. Technically they weren't supposed to recruit. They still did, though. Twice this year, even college coaches had shown up at Henry's games, just to get a look at him playing. He was a marvel on the field.<p>

Serena herself was an absolute klutz on the soccer field and she was happy about that. Henry needed something that he excelled at just his own. It was part of the reason their friendship just got stronger - they each had their own triumphs.

Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, Serena saw a flash of movement in the woods behind the soccer field. She smiled and stood on the bleachers. "I need to go to the bathroom. I'll be back in a bit," she said to Lexi.

She made her way down the bleachers and behind them, to a place that was out of view for most people. She felt Henry's eyes on her as she was walking and glanced back. They shared a smile. She reached the gate at the edge of the field and found Jack Hotchner standing there in the tree line.

Serena took in the black clothing, the thick black eyeliner and slightly infected piercing in Jack's ear before turning to lean with her back against the fence so it didn't look too obvious that she was talking to someone lurking in the woods behind her school.

"You could just come on the grounds and watch in the bleachers with me, you know," said Serena while staring at the soccer field in the distance.

"Can't do that, Serena." He never came in the gates anymore. He'd drive over after his high school let out for the day and watch Henry's games and sometimes his practices from the woods. If Will or JJ or Serena's parents saw him there, it would get back to Hotch that Jack was actually showing an interest in something, and right now Jack was working very hard to pretend he wasn't interested in anything.

"How many people at your high school are you fooling with that facade?" asked Serena.

"Most of them. People change in high school."

Serena laughed lightly. "You've got this whole dark, brooding thing going on, but you suck at putting on eyeliner, your ear is infected, and it would be better for everyone if you just told your dad you were pulling this crap so he'd actually show up for dinner with some regularity."

Jack laughed. "Curse the day Emily and Derek let you take psychology classes. What about you? You could fit three of you in that sweater."

Serena glanced down at her boots and jeans and the baggy wool sweater that did a fair job of hiding her shape and masking her chest a little. "I guess we've all got our issues. But, seriously, Jack. You're giving your dad an ulcer."

Jack's voice was a little sad. "I know. But he's home much more when I'm like this, because he's concerned. If I told him the truth, I think he'd go right back to staying at work half the night. You're not going to say anything, are you?"

"Jack Hotchner, the three of us made a pact five years ago with needles and blood and fire and tons of other childish nonsense. We keep each other's secrets. They are profilers, though, and I'm sure they've all considered that this is an act. Just don't screw up your grades. You promised you'd apply to GW and we could go together."

"I'm not going to screw up my grades, but you're going to have your PhD before I get there in two years," said Jack.

Serena knew if she turned around, she would see the patented Hotchner half-smile. She smirked. "Then I'll get another PhD. You stay here and I'm going to go get something for that ear. It really is infected."

Jack laughed again and Serena felt his hand gently pat her shoulder through the gate. "Thanks, Serena."

* * *

><p>Emily threw her arms out and grabbed onto the sheets as she screamed through her second orgasm of the afternoon. After catching her breath for a few seconds she felt Derek still his hips and lift the upper part of his body off her. She opened her eyes and found him smiling at her.<p>

"You are the sexiest damned thirty-nine year old on the planet," he said with a wink.

Emily laughed breathlessly, "That's sweet, but it's fifty-two years old."

"Not until tomorrow, and you're still rocking the body of someone decades younger. Think you have another orgasm in you?" Derek asked while waggling his eyebrows.

Emily grinned and tightened her thighs around him. She put her left arm around him and pushed on the bed with her right hand, propelling his body to flip over onto his back. Derek rolled over with ease, keeping his hands on her hips, keeping them connected, a smile on his lips.

"I'm surprised you're still going, old man," she said with a grin when she was settled on top of him.

Derek laughed. "Hey! I'm younger than you."

"By eight months. Don't get cocky."

Emily felt Derek move his hips. "That's exactly what I am."

"Ha ha," laughed Emily. She pushed herself into a more upright position and started moving on top of him with a satisfied sigh, effectively cutting off any more conversation for the moment.

She did manage a third orgasm, right when he was letting go and after, she could do nothing but collapse on top of him, exhausted. She felt his hands on her back and managed to move her head to kiss his cheek. A minute later she huffed out a laugh and murmured, "Holy shit."

She felt his body under hers as a laugh moved through him. "Happy birthday, Em. I love you."

"I love you, too," she said as she rolled off him and collapsed on her back.

When her breathing had returned to completely normal and she opened her eyes a couple of minutes later, she noticed Derek looking at his watch. "Time to get ready for dinner?" she asked.

"No. We still have plenty of time. I was just checking my watch. I'm assuming Will picked up the kids and everything is fine at this point."

"Of course he did, or he would have called. Why would you be worried about that?" asked Emily.

Derek rolled on his side to face her. "I'm not. Not about that. I almost called Penelope, though, to ask her if she'd take Serena for the night, instead of having her go to JJ's."

No further explanation was needed. Emily reached out her hand and touched Derek's chest. "Serena and Henry are like brother and sister, Derek. Stop worrying about that. Plus, I'm pretty sure she tells us just about everything. Not only that, but, well, she's Serena. I don't know how to describe it any better than that. She's at college taking classes with people in their twenties and thirties, and she's at school with kids her own age. I just don't worry about things like her and boys. Yet, anyway."

"Henry's going to be fourteen in a couple of weeks, and Serena's almost thirteen. Do you remember fourteen year old boys?"

Emily laughed. "I do. But it's Henry. And it's not like they're unsupervised over there. Relax. They're our family."

Derek sighed. "OK. I'm going to trust you on this one."

Emily smiled at her husband. "You're cute, you know that? Care to join me in the shower?"

Derek laughed and leaned forward to kiss her. "I can think of nowhere else I'd rather be."


	2. Chapter 2

Serena woke early on the Sunday after her mom's birthday with a smile on her face. Staying at JJ and Will's house was like a second home to her and it was fine waking up there the previous morning, but nothing beat waking up in her own bed, especially on a Sunday. On Saturday's, everyone woke early and went with her Dad to help at his latest house project, but Sundays were Serena's favorite day of the week. Her mom was an early riser while her dad and Caleb always slept in. On Sunday mornings, she had some time with Emily by herself.

The night before, Fran had been over for her mom's birthday dinner, and everyone had stayed up late. Serena couldn't be sure her mom was up, but when she opened her bedroom door, she heard the soft sound of the TV floating upstairs and grinned again. She quietly walked down the stairs and saw her mom curled up on one edge of the couch watching the television. Serena noticed the station flip to the cooking channel quickly, but didn't take much note of it. Though she was approaching thirteen, though she was taking PhD level courses at a college, though she looked much older than her years, she didn't imagine a time when she'd ever give up her Sunday morning hugs with her mom. Her mom understood everything without Serena having to say a word most of the time, and, while her dad's hugs made her feel the safest, her mom's hugs always made her feel the warmest.

Serena curled up on the couch and pressed her body into her mom's side and she felt the familiar arm go around her and the soft kiss on her head. "Good morning, my sweet girl," whispered Emily.

Serena wrapped her arm around Emily and said a quiet, "Good morning," back.

They sat in silence for several minutes, watching a rerun of a cooking show that Serena didn't pay any attention to. She was thinking about Jack, and about what she'd told him the Friday before, about being honest with his dad. Serena took a deep breath. "I leave the resource room early so I can change for PE before any of the other girls are there, and then I run back to the locker room after PE and try to get back into my regular clothes before they get back to the locker room. I'd think I'd be okay if Jacie wasn't there, but she is. And she's awful. I always said I wanted to at least finish eighth grade in a regular school, and it makes me so mad at myself that I'm letting one obnoxious girl make me feel so self-conscious."

Emily squeezed her arm around Serena and dropped another kiss on her head before responding, "And you wear baggy sweaters because you're not quite sure how to feel about your changing body. I understand, Serena. When I was about your age, I was similar to how you are now. And kids teased me. I didn't have much of an option because I was forced to wear a school uniform; I couldn't hide under baggy clothing. But Jacob..."

Serena interrupted and looked at her mom. "Your cousin who called you 'Scout'?"

Emily smiled, "Yes, that Jacob. He told me that I was spectacular and the people who teased me were the ones who couldn't comprehend that and felt badly about themselves. You have a bunch of friends, Serena, and one girl in your life who is difficult. There's always going to be that girl. What you have to decide is if you are behaving differently and dressing differently because it makes you feel the most comfortable within yourself at the moment, or if you're doing it because of Jacie Pritchard. If it's the latter, it's time to take back some control, my sweet, wonderful Serena."

Serena felt tears in her eyes, but she blinked them back. Ever since her dad came back four years ago after he was hurt, Serena hadn't really cried. Once her dad came home, she didn't feel like there was anything in the world to cry about anymore. She had everything. And her mom was right: If she felt like crying because of a girl like Jacie, she was giving that girl way too much control over her life. Serena's family had walked into the depths of hell with her dad and brought him back out of it, and one catty, socially-inept girl shouldn't be changing the happiness she felt about her life, regardless of her changing body.

Serena grinned and said, "Sounds good to me, Emily." This was something she'd said to Emily with regularity the first week she'd known Emily, before she started calling her 'Mommy,' and eventually just 'Mom.'

Emily laughed. "Every time you say that, I see a four-year-old Serena in my mind."

"Me, too. Hey, is the team coming over for dinner tonight?"

"It's Sunday, isn't it?"

Serena smiled. It was another reason she loved Sundays. Ever since her dad quit working for the FBI, the BAU team started coming for dinners at their house on most Sundays, unless they were traveling for a case. Jack hadn't been showing up recently though, which meant sometimes Hotch didn't either. Maybe she'd give Jack a call and directly ask him to show up tonight; it felt best when they were all together and she missed seeing him where they weren't talking in secret through a fence at her school.

* * *

><p>On Tuesday, the BAU team sat in the briefing room trying to eat lunch, but only able to stare at the television. Derek was there; his latest house project was close to Quantico, and he frequently came for lunch on the days Emily was working at the BAU. What they were seeing on the TV defied anything they'd ever seen before.<p>

Back in 2019, when Ebola was making its way through the United States, new laws and policies were written for quarantine procedures. They'd been able to stop the spread of Ebola before it reached anything close to catastrophic proportions, in large part because the science behind vaccines had come a long way, and there were now ways to both inoculate those not infected with Ebola, while also treating and curing those who already had it, all with a single injection.

But that was Ebola, and what was going on in Georgia at the moment was something else. What the spokesperson from the CDC was trying to say without actually saying it was that they didn't know what the fuck the viral strain was that they were seeing. Given the fact that they now had over a thousand reported cases of these suspicious flu-like symptoms in just under a week in Atlanta and the surrounding areas, with thousands more cases likely unreported, FEMA was stepping in.

In a joint effort between the CDC, FEMA and the US Army, they were putting the entire state of Georgia under quarantine. The borders were closed, all air travel halted. They were asking for the cooperation of the people of Georgia, along with the rest of the United States. Those who had traveled by plane in the past three days were asked to stay in their homes, and to call a specific number if they developed any systems such as a cough, headache or muscle aches combined with a low-grade fever. Those who had been in close contact with anyone who had traveled by plane in the past three days to any part of the United States were also asked to stay in their homes. Their best guess for the onset of symptoms was approximately 24 to 72 hours after exposure.

The state of Georgia was in an uproar, with riots and looting that the army was trying to control, according to the video footage that was flashing in the corner of the television screen.

The screen went back to the spokesperson from the CDC.

"How does it spread?" asked a reporter.

The spokesperson replied somberly, "It appears to be airborne."

"How does the virus progress?" asked another reporter.

"That seems dependent on the general health and age of the infected person. Some people are responding well to anti-viral medication and we're able to keep their symptoms under control at this time. We're not able to give a definite answer to your question yet as the cases are newly reported, but we will keep you informed as we learn more information."

"Have there been cases reported anywhere else?"

"We're currently investigating some isolated cases in other states, but we can't definitively say it's the same virus at this time."

"Has anyone died from the virus?"

The spokesperson cleared her throat. "Yes. Nine people who developed symptoms early last week."

"Were these people in contact with the three people who disappeared from Atlanta General Hospital on October seventh?"

"I'm sorry, I have no further comments."

The CDC spokesperson walked off the screen and the entire BAU team was surprised when the President of the United States appeared on screen alongside Senator Elliot Pritchard. The two men despised each other, but the more conservative states, including Georgia, despised the President. And they loved Elliot Pritchard. Surely this joint appearance, where the two men were looking serious but aligned, was to try and calm the nation, and especially the state of Georgia.

Before the President started speaking, JJ spoke aloud, "Aren't we fucking glad we didn't go to Georgia last week?"

* * *

><p>It wasn't difficult for Serena to find out something frightening having to do with an unknown virus in Georgia was going on. Two teachers in the resource room were talking about it after lunch, and Serena quietly got on her laptop computer and read all about it. It sent her heart racing.<p>

She sent an email to Dr. Lamont asking if he'd heard about the virus. She didn't know if he'd receive the email; he was on sabbatical this year and currently working in Nigeria, trying to set up a lab for more advanced vaccine production.

She'd taken her mother's advice and stopped rushing to change in the locker room. It was her second day not wearing a baggy sweater, too. If anything, it had made Jacie more tolerable, which surprised Serena. Perhaps seeing Serena less self-conscious had deflated Jacie's confidence. Or, perhaps, she'd actually learned a lesson last Friday when no one supported her harsh words towards Serena. That part of Serena's life, at least, was feeling better. But that entire PE period, her mind was on what she'd read about going on in Georgia.

What Serena really wanted was to get her hands on the molecular structure of that virus. The whole reason she was interested in field of microbiology and biochemistry was because she wanted to help save lives.

At the end of PE, her teacher passed out flyers to all of her students to bring home. It was an official statement from the CDC listing who should implement a self-imposed quarantine, and the symptoms to look for. While they were in the locker room changing, Kathryn, the director of the school, came over the loud speaker and announced that all after-school activities were cancelled for the day. Parents had been notified. All classrooms were to follow their teachers to the parking lot in an orderly fashion, and line up like they did for a fire drill. Parents would pick their students up there, and the teachers would remain until all students had left for the day.

Serena's heart was racing again and everyone in the locker room started talking over each other, both stunned and panicked. Caleb was already gone for the day. Fran had picked him up at lunch time because he had a dentist appointment that afternoon. With him safely out of school, Serena's focus became Henry. He was supposed to have a soccer game that day. Will was supposed to be there and he was supposed to bring Serena home after the game. She didn't know if he'd still be the one showing up to get her, or whether her mom or dad would come.

She grabbed her backpack and lined up with her class, then carefully wove her way over to the eighth grade lines until she spotted Henry's blonde hair. When she stepped in line next to him, she whispered, "It's bad, Henry. The entire state of Georgia is quarantined. People are dying. Thousands have this virus."

Henry turned to stare at her with wide eyes. "Any cases in Virginia or DC?"

"Not as of two hours ago, at least not that I saw online, but I'm thinking given what's going on right now that that could have changed."

"More when we get home. Let's not talk about this here and get people panicked," whispered Henry, and Serena nodded.

The parking lot was jammed with parents in their cars, but the teachers and staff were doing a good job of keeping everyone calm and moving the traffic along, getting kids in cars and getting them out of the parking lot. Over half the school was gone before Henry and Serena saw the black suburban with flashing lights pull into the parking lot.

Dread and worry immediately filled Serena. She pulled out her cell phone to see if there was a message from her parents, but there wasn't one. She tried calling her mom, but the call wouldn't go through. She tugged on Henry's arm and he turned his head away from those flashing lights and looked at Serena.

"My calls won't go through. It's just a busy signal when I dial," said Serena.

"That's probably my mom coming to get us, and people are probably panicked, flooding the cell towers or something with all of their calls. Let's stay calm," said Henry, and he sounded exactly like his father when he said it, the same soothing voice and relaxed demeanor.

The Suburban pulled past the pick up line and into the fire zone. Two men in suits stepped out of the vehicle and walked up to Kathryn, where she was standing with a loud speaker. Serena watched the men she and Henry didn't recognize show Kathryn their badges. They spoke for a few seconds and then Kathryn nodded. She placed the speaker near her mouth. "Serena Morgan, Henry LaMontagne and Jacie Pritchard," she called out.

Henry and Serena shared a confused look and made their way towards Kathryn and the two men, Jacie joining them on their walk.

One of the men stepped forward. "I'm Agent Jackson. Your parents sent us to get you and bring you to Quantico."

Serena raised her eyebrows,"What about Caleb?"

Agent Jackson smiled, "He's already on his way, with your grandmother. Fran, I believe?"

"Why Quantico instead of home?" asked Henry.

"Because your mothers have been ordered to remain there in case their assistance is needed. And, Serena, I was told to let you know that your dad is already there."

Serena nodded, relieved. "Why Jacie?"

"Senator Pritchard called Emily and asked for a favor. He's extremely busy now and Jacie's mother is in France. He wants Jacie safe."

Serena looked at Henry and saw his eyes narrow. "Why didn't my dad come to get us?"

"Your dad was on duty and DC is in a bit of a gridlock right now. He was having a hard time getting here."

Henry reached forward and took Agent Jackson's badge from his hand. Serena looked with him. It looked authentic. For once, Jacie Pritchard seemed beyond words; she looked scared out of her mind.

"OK," Henry finally said with a nod. "Let's go."

The agents nodded and got into the front seat. Jacie, Serena and Henry climbed into the back.

When they were two blocks away from the school, in a well-rehearsed motion that took only seconds, Agent Jackson and the agent in the passenger seat pulled on gas masks. Before Serena, Henry or Jacie could comprehend what was going on, a noxious smell filled the inside of the car. She felt Henry's hand clasp hers and her last thought before she passed out was, "We are in trouble."

* * *

><p>Will LaMontagne wanted JJ out of FBI headquarters quickly. The plan was for him to get Henry and Serena and meet everyone at Rossi's. They'd chosen Rossi's house because it was well-equipped to keep them sustained for quite awhile if they needed that. The team wanted to get out of headquarters before someone told them they weren't allowed to leave. It wasn't that they didn't want to help; it's just that they had no way of doing so at the moment. The military was calling the shots now. Everyone was wandering around waiting for orders that weren't coming, at least not orders directed towards the BAU at the moment. Staying in a large building with people who traveled all over seemed a surefire way for one of them to get sick. Army medics had already taken a handful of people with mild colds into a locked-down area of the building just in case.<p>

Will pulled up to Walden Country School in a squad car ten minutes later. He noticed most of the kids at the school were gone, but he couldn't catch a glimpse of Henry or Serena. He parked the car and went to speak with Kathryn, who looked confused.

"Two FBI agents came and picked them up, along with Senator Pritchard's daughter, about fifteen minutes ago," said Kathryn in a worried voice.

Will ran back to his car. He tried his cell phone but couldn't get through to JJ. He got on the phone connected to his police radio and dialed JJ's office number at the BAU.

"We're just getting ready to leave here, and we'll meet you and the kids at Rossi's," said JJ when she answered.

"Two FBI agents picked up Henry and Serena fifteen minutes ago. They said you sent them."

"WHAT? No! Where are they?"

Will's heart was racing. What the fuck was going on? He turned his lights and sirens on and pulled out of the parking lot. "I'm on my way. The parking lot at the school has surveillance. Have Garcia pull that footage."

Will avoided the freeway, which was a mess. Everyone was in a panic. Somehow the media got wind of several cases of ill people in the Virginia and DC area calling into the number the CDC instructed them to call. DC was under military control now and no one was allowed in or out. He'd barely gotten out in time, and then had to fight massive traffic to get to the school. He'd ignored orders and left DC and was probably out of a job, and he didn't care. The world was going to shit and all he wanted to do was get to his family. And now the kids were gone, along with Jacie Pritchard. He couldn't figure out in his head why her or how she fit into this. He did have one thought as to why the kids had been taken, though, and it had to do with Serena, and what she knew and was capable of.

He scanned the area as he sped towards Quantico on side roads, like somehow the car that held Henry and Serena was just going to appear. When he arrived at FBI headquarters, he wasn't surprised to see Army personnel with guns and in riot gear guarding the entrance. He was pretty sure this was the protocol that was occurring at every government facility in the area at the moment, perhaps at every government facility throughout the United States. However, headquarters were eerily quiet at the moment. There was no one in the parking lot.

When he got to the entrance, he saw Rossi wearing a paper face mask on the other side, having a conversation with a man in uniform. The man nodded and opened the door, handed Will and mask and let him inside.

Rossi wasted no time. He started walking into the building and talking. "It's bad. Jack was supposed to drive to my house and meet us there, but Garcia's hacked into the video cameras on my security system, and he hasn't shown up yet. He should have been there by now. And Fran was supposed to drive there with Caleb, but..." Rossi paused and shook his head.

"What?" asked Will, trying very hard not to give into the fear and emotion that was threatening to spill over and cloud the objectivity he was going to need if he was going to find his son.

"Garcia got street footage outside the dentist office where Fran was with Caleb. They come out in a rush and a van pulls up and pulls both of them inside before speeding off."

Will took a shaky breath. "The footage at the school?"

"Two men. Authentic bureau vehicle, but we can't see their faces well. They knew where the cameras were and avoided looking directly at them. Garcia's trying to clean up the footage so we can zoom in the badges, but we think they were probably fake. The vehicle is on GPS, stopped about ten blocks from the school. We think they switched cars there, but it's residential. No cameras."

"And Morgan?"

"Derek's here. He was here for lunch and didn't leave."

"Your theories?" Will asked as they stepped into the elevator.

"Reid's theory, which I agree with: They took Serena because of this virus. If they wanted her to prevent her from helping to find a vaccine, they would have only needed to take her, or take her out. They took her because they want her to find a cure. Reid thinks this is likely a man-made virus, a chimera, a biological weapon that got out and then got out of control. Whoever created it wants to clean up their mess."

Will looked at Rossi in horror. "And they took the most vulnerable members of her family for motivation, to make sure she worked quickly?"

Rossi nodded his head sadly.

"Why Jacie Pritchard?"

"Leverage, opportunity and money is all we can think of. Or someone that's behind this hates Elliot Pritchard, which is entirely possible. Half the nation does. That's still the big unknown to us, though. But Senator Pritchard is beyond angry and worried, and he's in a helicopter on his way here."

Will walked into the BAU briefing room, and JJ rushed at him, tears in her eyes. He wrapped her in a hug and glanced to see Emily sitting at the table, her face buried in her hands, Derek leaning over the back of her, whispering in her ear. Hotch looked equally as devastated. Garcia was frantically typing on her laptop. Reid was focused on the monitors on the wall, one showing Rossi's empty driveway, the other showing the footage of the parking lot at Walden Country School. Will let go of JJ and walked towards that screen. He saw Serena and Henry standing there, talking to the agents. Henry was his son, but Serena was family, too. He placed his finger gently on both of their faces on the screen.

Then he did something he hadn't done in years, since that dreadful night when JJ went missing almost eight years before. He prayed.


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N at the end. If you haven't read Labyrinthine, you may want to scroll to the bottom and read that note first! :)  
><em>

* * *

><p>The man who sat across from the Director of the FBI was a distinguished older gentleman in his sixties. He'd been to headquarters once before, the previous Friday, and at that meeting, the Director had been intimidated by him. But now, with the face mask and only his eyes showing, that feeling had dissipated some. His eyes alone were far too kind to be intimidating. He was the mouthpiece calling the shots for the FBI at the moment, sent directly there by the Attorney General and the President of the United States. His name was Sam Englen.<p>

"I'd originally come here to ask Emily and Derek Morgan if they'd be willing to let their daughter help us, and now that she's been taken, if I'm totally honest, I'm not sure what the next best move would be," said Mr. Englen.

"Surely there are other, better people who can work on this besides a young girl," said the Director.

"Of course. We have some of the best minds working on a cure," said Mr. Englen in a flat tone.

"Do you know who started all of it?" asked the Director, who had been informed that this was a virus manipulated and engineered by man.

"We have our suspicions, yes. But right now, our focus is on finding a cure and stopping this. Georgia is all but lost, and it was too late before FEMA even stepped in. Atlanta is a major hub." Mr. Englen shook his head and then continued, "Are any of the BAU showing symptoms?"

The Director raised his eyebrows at the question. "No. Not that I'm aware of. You ordered me to not let them go to Georgia last Friday, and I made sure they didn't."

Mr. Englen nodded. "Lock this place down. The last thing we need is them out on the streets investigating the kidnappings. You really don't want any of your agents on the streets right now. There aren't enough of them to do any good at the moment. Right now we have to consider the preservation of life - living, breathing, non-infected human beings are going to become a rare commodity in the next couple of weeks, if something can't be done."

That last sentence hit the Director like a blow. "But their families are out there. My family's out there," he said weakly.

Mr. Englen sighed. "If your agents are able to get in touch with their families, tell them that they are welcome to have their families join them here. Set up a quarantine area for the families that arrive. Keep them there for seventy-two hours to make sure they don't show symptoms before reuniting them with your agents. Start rationing your emergency supplies."

"OK. But Mr. Englen, Senator Pritchard is on his way right now. Should I wait until he gets here and leaves before locking things down?"

"No. Lock it down now and inform Senator Pritchard that your office will keep in touch with him regarding the investigation of his daughter's whereabouts. He sent people back to his great state of Georgia last Friday to try and calm the mass hysteria, and then he met with those people on Sunday. Elliot Pritchard should be in self-imposed quarantine right now, not that I'm sure that matters anymore. But you definitely don't want him here."

Sam Englen stood and went to the door, but paused and turned. "I am trusting you to use your discretion with what I'm about to tell you. First, you should know that it's likely you have some agents working for the people who created this virus. Second, if anyone gets sick and their temperature gets higher than 104, they are as good as dead. And you'll want to make sure they are dead at that point."

"Sir?" asked the Director weakly.

"I want you to trust me. I'm telling you this because the Army medics who are currently treating your ill agents have been ordered to end the lives of anyone whose temperatures get to that point. I'll be in touch, but we won't see each other again any time soon. We're likely only hours away from an emergency shut down of all air travel, including helicopters. Stay well."

Sam Englen quickly made his way up to the roof and his waiting helicopter.

"No little girl?" asked his pilot, Adam. Sam Englen did not trust easily, but he'd worked with Adam on and off for decades and Adam had been his right-hand man for the past several years. He was going to need someone he could be candid with or this was all going to go to hell and they were going to die. Or worse.

"She's been kidnapped, along with some members of her family. The other side got to her first, which means they need her, that whomever they had working on a cure is probably sick or dead and they needed someone brilliant who could be manipulated. Which means Serena Morgan is likely starting her research with far more information than we have. And once she figures out a cure, she's probably dead." said Sam.

"So now what do we do?"

"We find her before that happens," said Sam with conviction. "Take me to my house."

"Sam, you were ordered to immediately return to Washington."

"We'll tell the President we couldn't get back to DC and I'll keep in touch with him. Washington DC is as good as a coffin at this point. The game's changed. I no longer play for the President. I play for myself and what I care about, and I'm going to need you."

Sam got in his seat in the helicopter and closed his eyes for a moment. His whole plan needed to change and change quickly. He'd been with the President for almost six years now, he was the reason the President had been elected for a second term when the voting was so close but actually not in the President's favor until he'd manipulated things. It wasn't that he didn't like the man, but the President was no longer his priority; he never really had been. He'd stayed close to DC for one reason, just in case he'd ever be needed or have the opportunity to repay a debt he felt he owed for being so despicable to Emily so many years before, and now his opportunity had come.

He wasn't sure if he'd made the right decision, locking down headquarters and keeping Emily, Derek and their friends inside the building, but he'd only had two options. Once they got outside to investigate, the exposure to the virus was a certainty, and there were people with guns, looting and rioting in the streets. His new plan was to keep them all alive. He would work on finding Serena with his computers first. Maybe, between him and Penelope Garcia, they'd have a chance.

He turned to look at Adam as the helicopter took off and spoke into his headpiece. "Let's drop this Sam thing. That part of our lives is over. Call me Jacob."

* * *

><p>"I can't get in any closer on the FBI badge," said Garcia.<p>

They all looked at the blurry image that was frozen on the screen. They saw a hand, a watch, something else above the watch, a mole or tattoo. The badge was a blur, though.

Emily took a deep breath, wiped her face and sat up straight in her chair in the briefing room. She placed her hand on Derek's where it was resting on her shoulder as he stood behind her. All of them where in masks, but they could speak volumes with their eyes.

She looked at Penelope, who was typing frantically, trying to enhance images, look at traffic cameras, find anything that could give them a clue as to where the kids and Fran were. Reid was working with a map, his back to her, shaking his head as he tried to pinpoint any sort of area in which to search.

Her son and daughter were gone, along with Henry and Jack and Fran. She couldn't believe it. She couldn't wrap her mind around the theory that they all believed was fact at this point - Serena was taken so she could find a cure. The weight of the world and the lives of some of the people Serena cared most about was on her little girl's shoulders. But Emily's tears couldn't bring them back.

Hotch had turned the TV back on. Just four hours after they'd seen that interview with the spokeswoman from the CDC, there were reports of a massive cover up coming from Georgia. Someone had taken video of literally hundreds, maybe thousands, of bodies wrapped in plastic under what looked like a large army tent. And then, the last footage there was from Georgia before they weren't getting any more feed from that location was of truly deranged people on the streets. These weren't looters. These were people with bats and guns and other weapons going on killing sprees.

In the back of Emily's mind was the nagging feeling that they needed to get out of there. To say the United States was in chaos was an understatement. It wasn't the looting that frightened her as much as the fact that whatever this virus was, it was spreading so fast and so far. They'd underestimated the entire scope of this whole disaster from the beginning; probably the whole world had. And now it was out of control. DC was already on lock down, and it was only a matter of time before Virginia was as well, or at least FBI headquarters was. Once that happened, they wouldn't even be able to search.

"Can we do this from Rossi's?" asked Emily desperately.

"After we talk to Senator Pritchard, we'll move there. He should be here any minute." said Rossi soothingly.

Suddenly Penelope gasped. She put an image up on the screen in the briefing room. "This is the SUV carrying Serena and Henry," she said. They looked and saw the black car pass through an intersection. And then, about ten seconds later, they saw Jack Hotchner's car pass through the same intersection.

"He went to the school and saw them leave and followed them," said Derek.

"Maybe he hasn't been taken," said Reid. "Maybe he'll contact us and let us know where they are."

Everyone's eyes were hopeful, and Emily glanced at Hotch, who looked optimistic.

"Can you find his car on GPS, Garcia?" Hotch asked.

"No. Not his cell phone either, just like Serena and Henry's. But that doesn't necessarily mean anything. Everyone's using their cell phones right now trying to reach people. It's all a mess. I couldn't find your cell phone on my computer right now, and it's sitting right there in front of you."

Emily saw Hotch deflate a bit. And then the broadcast system in the building went off. They heard the voice of the Director of the FBI himself over speakers. "In an effort to preserve agents who can serve when the need arises, headquarters are currently on lock down. All agents and staff are asked to remain in their areas of the building, and wear their face masks. Should you develop any cold or flu-like symptoms, please report to the lower level of headquarters where you will be treated with antivirals and kept comfortable. If you are able to reach your family, they are welcome here. We will set up a quarantine area with supplies for them. We took an oath when we entered the FBI to serve. Remember that oath. This is what we are all being asked to do at the moment, and I know I can count on you to follow procedure."

The team glanced at each other and rose in unison. Penelope grabbed her laptop and they made their way for the elevators and the exit. But when they arrived, there was a human wall of military with riot gear and guns, not facing the parking lot outside, but facing in towards the building.

Rossi stepped forward towards the guards. "Our family is out there."

"So is ours, Sir," responded one of the guards.

And Emily clasped Derek's hand and bowed her head in despair. They weren't going anywhere at the moment. Derek leaned towards her and whispered in her ear. "We'll figure this out. We'll find them."

She looked at him and their eyes told each other a story of fear and sadness and love. But Emily chose to stay strong in that moment. She nodded her head at Derek. They would figure this out.

They made their way back upstairs and into the briefing room. Hotch disappeared for a few minutes and returned holding three guns and a duffel bag full of Kevlar vests. He dropped the vests in the corner of the room. He handed a gun to Emily and one to Derek. "Fuck protocol," said Hotch. "We work the case from here, and when we find them, we'll shoot our way out if we have to. We stick together." He turned towards Garcia and handed her the third gun. "We're all field agents right now and we need to be prepared. You should change into more appropriate clothes."

It wasn't a voice Emily had ever heard him use before. It didn't frighten her. She held that cool metal in her hand and let the absolute conviction in Hotch's voice resonate within her. They would find the kids and get out of there.

* * *

><p><em>Jack Hotchner ignored his dad. It wasn't the first time lately, and it might not be the last. He had been ordered to drive straight to Rossi's house, but he was only ten minutes away from Walden Country School, and his first thoughts had turned to Serena and Henry. Though they were both younger than him, they were his best friends, his family. He wanted to make sure they were safe, too, even though he knew Will was supposed to pick them up.<em>

_He'd pulled behind the line of cars clamoring to get into the school grounds when he noticed a Suburban with flashing lights pulling out. He had a brief moment of recognition from his position on the street - he saw what he thought was Henry sitting next to the window in the back seat. It didn't make sense since Will wouldn't have a vehicle like that, but Jack pulled out of the line of cars and followed the Suburban. Either it was going to Rossi's and he'd follow it in, or it wasn't and something else was going on. He wasn't brought up by Aaron Hotchner to presume that anything was as it might have seemed; he kept a safe distance._

_Several blocks later, the Suburban came to a stop behind a van parked on a street, and Jack pulled over about a half a block away. Two men emerged from the vehicle and pulled off gas masks. A third man from the van in front of them got out. Jack watched as the three men pulled three bodies from the back seat of the Suburban - one was Henry and one was Serena, but he didn't recognize the third. He was scared and felt bile rising in his throat. He reached for his phone and called his dad first, and then he went down the list of every contact he had that might be able to help. All he got was a busy signal, and his phone was telling him he barely had a charge left._

_Jack watched the men put the three bodies in the back of the van, and then they all got in the van, and the van pulled away from the curb. Jack followed the van for about ten miles. They were heading southwest, though they wove in and out of side streets. There was one point where they passed a small small strip mall, and Jack glanced at the sight out of the driver window in horror. There were hoards of people looting, people carrying cases of water, or pushing carts full of food, and other people fighting them for what they had. His heart sped up. A man with blood pouring from his nose came up to Jack's window, banging on it and begging Jack to help him. Jack turned away from that frightening sight and accelerated._

_Jack had a vague idea where they were - actually not far from where he was supposed to be going. He was heading into a more isolated area, where sprawling mansions were spread out from one another. The van pulled into a private driveway with a gate and Jack kept driving past, acting like he was heading further up the road. When he was a safe distance away, he turned his car around and stopped. He tapped his thumbs nervously on the steering wheel. He wad only minutes from Rossi's house, and though he was concerned they might move Serena and Henry before anyone could get back here, he decided his best move was to go there and tell the team where Serena and Henry were._

_He was a about fifty yards from the private drive when two men emerged in the street in front of him and opened fire on his car. Jack screamed and flung his body on the passenger seat while pressing down on the accelerator. Glass sprayed on him and he felt his tires blow. His car hit something, his body was flung forward against his seat belt and his air bags deployed, pushing him back against the seats, but not hitting him too hard because he was crouched so low. He came to a stop. He had one thought: _I'm going to die.

_But then, as suddenly as the gunfire started, it ended. His driver side door opened up and a rough hands undid his seat belt and hauled him out of the car._

_"Jack Hotchner. You're a bonus," said a gruff voice. "We didn't think we'd be able to get to you. More motivation for the little girl."_

_The other man trained his gun on Jack. Jack recognized him as the man who had emerged from the van. He didn't recognize the man holding onto him, though._

_Suddenly the man holding him coughed a deep, wet cough right near Jack's face._

_The man holding the gun shook his head. "Better hope that little girl works fast."_

_And Jack, heart hammering and mind racing, came to a realization. They were here because they wanted Serena. They wanted Serena to find them a cure for the virus that was in Georgia, and now, apparently here, too. And the man who'd just coughed in his face likely had that virus, and now Jack probably did, too._

Maybe they were all going to die,_ Jack thought._

_The man holding him placed his gun on the back of Jack's head and marched him towards the mansion. "Make that car disappear," the man called to his partner._

* * *

><p>Serena awoke in a panic, but she didn't open her eyes at first. Her mind worked quickly enough to know to keep her eyes closed while she gathered herself. She remember being in the Suburban. She remembered the smell. She remembered that moment before she passed out, and she could rapidly filter through her mind to figure out what this was all likely about.<p>

She remembered the feel of Henry's hand holding hers like the whisper of a promise of strength and friendship, but she knew before she even opened her eyes that he wasn't with her right now. The ground was hard under her head, and there was the sound of breathing in the room, but it was a rattly breath, somewhat muffled, of someone much older than Henry, Serena thought. Other than that, there was the hard floor, the feel of cool air on her face, and silence.

She blinked open her eyes and felt her head pound at the harsh light. She surveyed the small room from her position on the floor. She saw a table and a chair and darkened windows surrounding her. These weren't normal windows, like it was night outside. These were one-way windows, where people could look in on her, or she out through them, depending on the lighting. She could see one door across from her. She had the sense she was underground in a basement.

Serena shifted her head and saw a man in a full hazmat suit standing in front of another door with a gun slung over his shoulder. He was the owner of the rattly, muffled breath.

"Good. You're awake, Serena," said the man in a wheezing voice. "Time to get to work."

Serena sat up slowly and her head spun a bit, but she regained her focus. She looked at the man. "You're sick," she said.

The man nodded. "Yes, and that's why we need you to work quickly. You'll find notes and other pertinent information on the table."

Serena glanced over at the table and then back at the man. She looked through the face mask at the eyes. "You weren't one of the agents who picked us up at school."

"No. They're back at the FBI keeping an eye on your parents and everyone else at the BAU. We covered our tracks, but we don't entirely trust them not to find you."

Serena's mind was working quickly. She didn't know which question to ask first. She asked them all. "Where's Henry? Why did you bring Jacie? Are the FBI agents who picked us up sick, too?"

"Henry's here. So is Jack. He followed us here, and we took him into our custody. Your grandmother and Caleb are here. The FBI agents are probably sick, too. But so is everyone in your family, Serena, including you, most likely. This spreads too quickly for people not to be exposed. Most of them probably just don't have symptoms yet, but they will soon. Your grandmother started coughing about an hour ago. The last doctor working on the cure was very close and we're hoping you can figure out a cure before it's too late. If you don't, we're all going to die. And I don't just mean your family. You'll see when you read the notes."

Serena's body was shaking and she felt like she was going to throw up. "Why should I believe you?"

"You just should. I'm telling you the truth. Back to one of your first questions - why Jacie? Because we have no love for her father, and we wanted you to know we were serious."

The man reached over and flipped a switch. Light illuminated one of the windows and on the other side, Serena could see a blindfolded Jacie, shaking and crying. A man stood next to her with a gun pointed to her head.

"No!" shouted Serena.

"Yes," said the man in the hazmat suit. He hit another button and said, "Go ahead."

And then he flicked the light switch so Serena couldn't see Jacie anymore, but she could hear. A girl's scream, a gunshot, and a whimper before silence.

"You ready to get to work now, Serena? Just think if you don't. Next time it's going to be someone you actually care about in that room."

Serena managed to nod. She swallowed past the lump in her throat and stood on shaking legs and went to the table. There was a laptop and a thick notebook. She flipped the notebook open first and almost fell down as her knees gave out. She recognized the handwriting.

* * *

><p><em>AN - For those who haven't read Labyrinthine...I was writing this chapter and thinking about where this story was going next, and I needed to bring a character back. Jacob Hawthorne was part of Labyrinthine, Emily's cousin who lived with them for several years when she was a child. He adored Emily, but then, as an adult, he ended up being blackmailed by Elizabeth Prentiss to spy on Emily. What you need to know is that he is a computer genius, and has spent the majority of his adult years as a spy-for-hire. _

_Thanks for reading and for the reviews. I've never written anything quite like this, and I have to tell you that in doing research for this story, I've been having nightmares and probably spending far too long in the Internet vortex on websites where people are obsessed with conspiracy theories and biological weapons. At the same time, it's been an exciting writing process so far! :)_


	4. Chapter 4

_Derek drove his car away from the city and up winding hills. Emily held his hand, a content smile on her face. She'd just eaten a wonderful dinner and had a couple glasses of wine and she was feeling relaxed and happy. There were times when she really couldn't believe how good her life was, and that afternoon and evening was one of those times. _

_Derek pulled the car to a stop on the side of the road in a secluded area. He got out and came around the front of the car and to her door, opening it and reaching for her hand. She grinned and took it and stepped out of the car. He walked her to the hood of the car and leaned against it, pulling her back against his chest. It was a cool evening, and she could see her breath in the moonlight, but wrapped in his arms she felt warm. _

_"I can't give you the northern lights in Virginia, but I did look, Em, and they should be showing up tonight in some areas. I told you four years ago that I bet Aurora Borealis made an appearance every year on your birthday. But, for tonight, we're just going to have to pretend." _

_Emily reached one hand back behind her and placed it on his cheek. "I can do that," she whispered. _

_Just then, a shooting star shot across the pristine sky. _

_Derek bent his head forward and whispered in her ear, "Look at that. You still get a show in the sky on your birthday. Make a wish, Emily." _

_She turned in his arms and placed both hands on his face. "I have nothing left to wish for, Derek," she whispered. _

_Emily saw the smile light up his face; the smile she loved so much. She felt his strong arms pulling her closer, and his warm lips touching hers. _

"Emily," she heard Derek's voice call out. A gentle hand was shaking her shoulder.

Emily blinked open her eyes, disoriented. Her head was resting in her arms on a table. She remembered sitting there listening to Reid and Garcia talk and search, trying to find the kids, trying to find any leads at all. She remembered feeling exhausted in that moment, like she couldn't keep her eyes open another second, and she rested her head in her arms and must have dozed off.

She felt something foreign on her face and she remembered the mask. She remembered where she was and what was going on, and she was ripped away from her dream of the previous Friday and into the reality of the nightmare she was actually living in. She felt hot. She sat up and every muscle in her body ached. She was sick.

Emily raised glassy, frightened eyes to Derek's. "Should I go to quarantine?" she fearfully asked.

It was Reid who stood up in that moment and went to the door of the briefing room and closed it. "I've been considering this with the information we have from various news sources, and it doesn't matter, Emily. If people weren't contagious until they showed symptoms, this wouldn't spread so quickly. People are contagious before they show symptoms and we've been together all day, long before the masks. We shared food at lunch. We shouldn't separate now."

Emily glanced at Reid, and then around the table at the others, who nodded, but looked concerned at the same time. Her eyes found Derek's again, and a couple of tears leaked out. Derek reached to brush them away, but Emily pulled her head back. "We should be careful," she said sharply. And then added a soft, "I love you," a fraction of a second later.

Reid continued, "I'm...I don't really know how to say this, but, at least in Georgia, I think the Army was ordered to kill people who had this virus. That footage of the bodies wrapped up? It was too clean, too organized, too planned-looking to be an area where people were being placed after naturally dying of this. I know that sounds crazy, but I really think it's important that we all stick together. I'm a person who operates on facts and educated deductions, but I've just got this feeling that if we split up, we're not going to come back together again. The only people we should trust are the people in this room."

Everyone was torn away from Reid's words when Penelope muttered, "What the hell?" She typed frantically. "Someone's in my computer. How could anyone be in my computer? It's impossible."

"Is it someone inside the building?" asked Hotch.

"No, but I can't pinpoint a location either. Whoever it is is copying the video footage from in front of the school. Why would they do that? It would have been far easier just to hack into the school's security system," Penelope said in a confused and irritated voice.

"Someone wants you to know he or she is there, maybe." said Derek.

Emily's eyes widened and she stared at Penelope, a thought coming through the thickness she felt in her mind and body, and she could see Penelope shared her thought.

"A programming genius who could get past the security on your computer and wants us to know he's there," Emily murmured, and she could see the rest of the room understanding her thought process.

Just then Penelope's hand shot up to silence them. She stood and moved her computer to a different side of the table, then moved her hand to wave them over. They gathered around her and saw the words on the screen.

_There's one video feed and one audio feed coming from the room you're in. Tell everyone to be quiet, then move three seats to your right. _

They saw more words appearing in the window on Penelope's computer screen.

_Good. That's good. I can't see the computer screen on the video feed anymore. I have to be fast. It's me, Scout. I was the one who gave the order to keep you all out of Georgia last Friday. I ordered the lock down at headquarters today. If the people behind this think you're getting too close to finding Serena and the others, they will take you out without hesitation. This virus...there is a large group involved that created this. I'm not sure who is in charge. Our focus this past weekend shifted from finding them to finding a cure. But they have Serena and the others now. We can find them. Do not go to quarantine if you develop symptoms. If the worst happens and anyone develops a temperature over 104, he or she is as good as dead and you need to end their lives. I'm sorry, but that's reality. If you see anyone behaving irrationally, full of rage, shoot without hesitation. No word from Jack? _

Penelope turned to the group behind her, a terrified look on her face, and saw Hotch nod. She typed, _No._

Jacob typed a response: _I'm going to send you a list of people I think are involved with this. I'll take some, and you'll take the rest. The 911 system went to hell about an hour ago, but their recordings before that are still retrievable. We are looking for any 911 call that came in about anything - gunfire, explosives, disturbances - in the vicinity of any property owned or rented by anyone on that list between 3:30 and 4:30pm. From the little I know of Aaron Hotchner, however they got Jack, or tried to, it did not go down quietly. I think it's our best shot, but it's not going to be a fast process. Get some more computers in there. Use headphones. Anything you say out loud needs to sound like a dead end. _

Penelope typed, _Got it._

They waited a few seconds and more words appeared on the screen. _I'm leaving something on your computer. A way for you to communicate with me if you find something. You'll be able to find it and figure out the password. We'll find them. I have people on the inside, too. They'll come get you when it's time, and you'll know. Trust no one else. Whomever they had working on a cure before must have been close, or it would be too late for anyone else to step in and figure it out. And I believe Serena can do this and save us.  
><em>

Emily's heart skipped a beat at those words. Was Jacob's help a ploy to get himself cured? She hated to question him, but the only people she really trusted were the people in the room with her at the moment. Emily reached forward behind Penelope's back and typed. _Are you sick? _

_No. No symptoms yet, anyway. Emily? I know you can't see me right now to judge my sincerity, but I promise you and I hope you believe me: If I had to sacrifice myself right this minute to make sure you and your family could keep on living, I would do it. Trust me and hang in there, Scout.  
><em>

Emily reached forward again and typed_._ _I am sick, Jacob. How long do I have?_

Several seconds passed before they saw the words. _Sweet Emily. 72 hours before your temperature skyrockets. After that, the virus..._

Just then the door to the briefing room opened and the computer screen in front of them went completely blank. Two agents walked into the room with sandwiches and bottled water. "We're trying to get through the perishables in the dining area first," one of them said.

The agent reached forward to place a sandwich on the table, and Emily could see that Will recognized it the same moment she did: the large mole above the wristband of a watch. Emily saw Will tense and get ready to pounce, but Emily gently put her hand on his back and he stilled his forward motion. He gathered himself quickly. "Thank you," said Will as he reached his hands for the sandwich instead of towards the man that had taken Serena and Henry, the man they all wanted to kill with their bare hands.

The moment passed and the men laid out the provisions and left the room. Seconds later, a deep, wet cough shuddered through JJ. She couldn't seem to gain control of it and she dipped down and then sat, her back pressed against the wall.

Emily ignored the ache in her body and went to crouch in front of JJ. When the coughing subsided, JJ's eyes found hers. Eyes were all they had with the rest of their faces covered with masks. Emily could see JJ was remembering the same thing she did. The past Sunday afternoon, when they'd been grocery shopping for the team dinner, Fran and Caleb with them. They'd been talking in code so Caleb couldn't understand, about Derek's concern regarding co-ed sleepovers with Serena and Henry.

_"I get where he's coming from," said JJ, "But our kids? You know what they did on Friday night? It was like some Puritan dream. We made cookies and played charades with Caleb." _

_Emily laughed as they waited in line to check out. Caleb was standing right next to her and piped up, "We need balloons! It's Mommy's birthday." _

_"I think we do need balloons, Caleb," said Fran with a smile, as she grabbed a few from the display at the front of the check-out line. _

_Caleb threw his head back and laughed happily and Emily shared a look with JJ, because whenever Caleb did that it was like a small, male JJ was laughing. _

_When they got to the front of the line, the woman working the register had red, watery eyes. "Don't mind me," she said with a congested voice. "Leave it to me to have allergies in the fall." She wiped her eyes then wiped her hands on her hands on her smock. After that she started bagging groceries. She handed Emily the change. She passed the balloons to Fran. She came around the side of the check-out area and pulled the shopping cart towards her to load up the rest of the groceries. When everything was in the cart and Emily pushed it forward, the checker reached forward and placed a hand on Caleb's head. "Aren't you the cutest little man ever?" she asked. _

_They were walking out of the store when they heard the checker call out, "Wait!" They turned around and the checker walked up to JJ and handed her the gallon of milk they'd almost left behind. And then the checker barely got her arm in front of her face before she sneezed. _


	5. Chapter 5

Dr. Lamont's journal read like a script from a truly unbelievable and frightening science-fiction movie, except it was all real. Serena read his neat, small handwriting quickly, her heart racing. There was no reference to who all was involved with this; there was reference to the original plan, though, which was to create this virus along with a vaccine and cure. The virus was never supposed to get out to the general population before a cure was ready as well. Serena could take an educated guess as to why someone would do this.

She looked at the man guarding her door, "So you wanted to infect and kill people and create hysteria, and then swoop in with the cure?"

"I'm not at liberty to answer that question."

"Well who is?" demanded Serena.

The man stared at her and said nothing at all.

Serena looked back at the journal. These people, whoever they were, had played with fire and now everyone was getting burned. Every page she read felt like a nail in her coffin, along with Jack's, Henry's and Fran's. They weren't going to just be able to walk out of there, even if Serena was able to help them. And who knew how her parents and the rest of the team was doing. If she couldn't help these people, they were probably going to die anyway, die or become truly deranged lunatics. She could tell by his writing at the end of the journal that Dr. Lamont had met one of those two ends.

Serena felt he deserved it, because for the past year, Dr. Lamont had been part of a group who took homeless, destitute people of all ages off the streets in various areas of the United States and experimented with the virus on them. And Serena had seen this virus before, at least part of it. The actual structure of this virus, though, was far worse than what she'd seen at Inovax the previous summer. This wasn't a slight mutation of Ebola. This was the rhinovirus, or common cold, and a component of Ebola, combined with something she'd never seen before that Dr. Lamont referred to as C674,

It could be transmitted as easily as the common cold and live on surfaces above ten degrees for up to twelve hours. Symptoms appeared usually within forty-eight hours. But unlike Ebola, where someone would get sick and experience diarrhea or vomiting after a few days, that didn't happen with this one. Fevers started getting higher on day three. And then, when the body reached 104 degrees, the virus mutated at a rapid pace. At that point, the virus went into the brain, ripping through the ventromedial frontal lobe, creating multiple lesions. The virus eventually died when the fever reached 107 degrees. Either the infected person died, too, from the high fever, or, there was the far worse fate: The fever dropped, the person survived, but their ability to reason and control impulses was completely gone. What was left was the shell of someone who likely didn't even know themselves, but who knew violence and aggression when presented with any stimuli. There was no repairing that kind of damage.

What Dr. Lamont knew based on a year's worth of experiments is that about twenty percent survived this without their temperatures getting to the critical point. But, unlike chicken pox or other viruses, where if you got it once, you likely wouldn't get it again, you could be infected with this virus multiple times. Eighty percent of the infected reached the 104 degree mark, and of those, a little over half died. The other half were crazy.

Eleven days earlier, Dr. Lamont had allowed one of the people working for him to use Inovax's private jet and go home to Atlanta, Georgia to attend his father's funeral. Dr. Lamont didn't know that lab technician was infected, and did not know how it even happened. The technician had flown out, gone to the funeral, then flown back to DC. He'd come to Dr. Lamont on Sunday, worried because he didn't feel well, and when Dr. Lamont tested the technician, it was shown that he did indeed have the virus. Three people who had been at the funeral with the technician presented with symptoms two days later. Whomever Dr. Lamont worked for had gone in to retrieve those ill people, in hopes they could put a stop to a mass spread of a virus they weren't ready to have out in the world yet.

It didn't work, obviously.

Dr. Lamont presented with symptoms the previous Thursday evening, and tried to work at a frantic pace to save himself and everyone else infected. By Sunday evening, his temperature reached 104 degrees, and Serena could see in his writing at that point that he was absolutely delirious and barely making any sense anymore. Serena recognized her name on the second-to-last page of the journal, though, along with the names of several other highly-regarded biochemists who worked with diseases.

"Why me?" Serena asked her guard. "These other people listed here are far more experienced."

"Two are working for the CDC and we can't access them now, two are in Europe. You were on the list, and you were local and easy to get to."

"Wouldn't it be better to just share everything you know in hopes that someone, anywhere could help?"

The man was quiet for a moment and considered Serena. "It wouldn't be better for those of us involved."

Serena stood up and yelled, "You're going to die anyway!"

Just then a voice came over a speaker in the room. "Serena, Serena. Let's calm down. We really don't have time for outbursts."

She felt a hint of recognition when she heard the voice, but there was something not quite right, something in tone or inflection that didn't allow her to assign the voice to a person she knew. She looked at the speaker in the ceiling. "Why did you do this?" she asked quietly.

"I never wanted this virus loose in the United States, Serena. That was a mistake. But I, along with my colleagues, created it for the same reason people have been doing things like this for centuries: Power and money. It would have worked, too. But now, this is what we have to deal with and we need your help."

"And if I'm successful? You're just going to let us walk away?"

"Of course. That's why I'm keeping my identity hidden. I want nothing more than for you to live."

_Liar, _thought Serena.

Serena fought back tears and sank back into her chair. She started looking through the slides on the laptop again. She looked at molecular structures, she studied what Dr. Lamont had tried so far. She closed her eyes and let herself escape into that three-dimensional space where she could analyze things from all sides.

"Why are you closing your eyes?" asked the voice.

"Don't interrupt me - this is how I think," she whispered.

Several minutes later, Serena's heartbeat picked up, but she tried to keep an impassive look on her face when she opened her eyes. She flipped back a few pages in Dr. Lamont's journal. She looked at the images of slides on the laptop. Dr. Lamont had been miles away from a vaccine, if he ever discovered one at all. But he'd been right there with a treatment, Serena thought, at least a temporary one. Dr. Lamont was just too delusional at the end to realize it.

A plan came to her in an instant. She needed to verify if she was correct about Dr. Lamont's work, and if she was, maybe there was a way for them to walk out of there, to get to her parents and the rest of their family and help them. It would require her to do the unthinkable, but many members of her family killed criminals when they needed to, and those members of her family were some of the best people she knew.

She came up with a strategy, because a crying little girl was not going to get her far with the people who had taken her. She needed to be confident and strong.

She looked at the man guarding her door. "I'm assuming you're not expecting me to conjure up a vaccine out of thin air," she said sarcastically.

"No. We have a lab set up here. You need to suit up before you go in. We're trying to keep you healthy as long as possible." The man pointed to a closet in the corner of the room.

Serena used the time she had while she pulled on the suit to solidify her plan. The man opened the door at the other side of the room, and Serena walked into a small, well-equipped lab. Every piece of equipment was labeled, "Inovax."

"This is small," she said out loud. "Even if I'm successful, I could maybe help sixty people a day."

"Your job is to figure it out, Serena," said the voice from the speaker. "Once you do, we have full labs of people working for us that can replicate what you come up with."

Serena nodded. Though she wanted to rush through and verify what she thought was possibly already in that lab, she didn't. She took her time and looked around. Her eyes caught one thing she'd need for her plan. They'd had to kill the people who'd reached 104 degrees somehow, and there it was. Dr. Lamont had mentioned moving some pentobarbital to this small lab in his journal for that very purpose.

Her eyes scanned the lab again and she saw what she was looking for. She opened the door on a temperature-controlled refrigerator and saw them with her own eyes. Forty-eight perfect vials of something that could maybe buy her and her family time.

"How long have you had symptoms?" she asked her guard.

"Two days," he responded.

Serena shook her head sadly at him, like she was concerned. "I'm going to need a blood sample from you. But I'm also going to need blood samples from my grandmother, brother, Henry and Jack. And anyone else in this building. I need people who are infected at different stages and people who aren't infected at all yet. The more blood samples, the better."

_Lies. All lies,_ she thought. There were actually plenty of blood samples in that lab for her to work with. But she needed to see her family, to make sure they were really still there with her. She needed to see if the people holding her understood enough to call her bluff. And most importantly, she needed to open a IV port on her family and as many people as she could in that building, to have easy access to their veins, because if this was going to work, she'd have to be fast.

Her guard paused but the voice over the speaker came a few seconds later. "Was Dr. Lamont as close to a cure as he said he was?"

"Yes. I really think I just need about twenty-four hours. I think I can do this. But you're going to have to help me out," said Serena calmly.

_Lies,_ she thought again. _She probably only needed about twelve hours, to be sure. Maybe less. And it wasn't a cure, it was possibly a bandaid. But she'd take what she could in the moment. It's amazing how easily the lies were coming from her when her back was up against a wall. _

The voice over the speaker was firm, "Give her what she needs."

The guard nodded and Serena started gathering supplies. "Let me just make some labels," she told them.

* * *

><p>Jack was lead to a room, shoved in, and the door closed and locked firmly behind him. The first thing he noted was Henry, Caleb and Fran shoved in there unceremoniously on the floor. They were asleep, drugged. Their chests were moving. The room itself was not uncomfortable. There was a couch, television, and what looked to be a bathroom through a door near him.<p>

There were no windows, though. The walls were cinder block. A basement, he guessed.

He walked around the entire perimeter to take in the room, and on his second pass around, he heard a cough. Fran. Jack stepped closer to her and noticed her sweaty looking face. He gently shifted Caleb's still sleeping body away from her and used all of his strength to bend and lift Fran and place her gently on the couch. She'd been a part of his life for years now, not a front runner in the people he counted on, but close. Jack wasn't worried about getting sick by being near Fran; he figured he was already sick because of the man who'd coughed on his face just a little while ago.

He moved Fran's hair away from the front of her face and finally was slapped into the reality of how ridiculous he'd been the past few months. His father was who he was, no doubt. Aaron Hotchner was more deeply committed to his job than Jack would have liked, but he was that way because Jack had so many people to care for him. Mostly that had been Emily in recent years, but Fran was there, too. And as they got older, Henry, Serena and even Caleb had been a part of that. His family was different. Very different. But it was good, even better than what most people had in a lot of ways.

And his dad had worked tirelessly to protect Jack, his friends and the world from people like the ones who had taken them today. Jack had spent the last several months blaming his father and his father's career for the fact that his mom was dead. In that moment he realized that the world was way beyond any single man's choices or careers. Because you could be a really good, kind, wonderful person like Serena, and what you knew or were capable of could land everyone in hell. He'd been a complete asshole to his dad for months, but that ended here. He was going to do what he could to get them out of there. His only thought was that he needed to apologize to his dad. Even if he was sick and eventually died, he needed to tell his dad he was sorry first.

Since everyone else was still sleeping, Jack went into the bathroom. He washed the makeup off his face and pulled the disaster of a piercing out of his ear. When he was done, he stood and looked at himself in the mirror and saw all the features of him that were his mother that he'd been trying to mask. He let those pieces back in and smiled at himself in the mirror. Whatever he needed to do to get them out of there, he would do it.

It was an hour before anyone started waking up. Henry, after showing fear and then confusion, was fine. But Caleb didn't look well. And Fran, she was the worst of all. Jack told Henry to stay back. Maybe Henry would be okay if he just stayed away. Jack brought them all water. Jack put comforting hands on their foreheads. Jack told Caleb over and over that it would be okay and that Serena was okay and that his mommy and daddy were, too.

Caleb and Fran dozed in and out and Henry and Jack shared the fear they felt with their eyes, across the room from each other. The door unlocked at one point and a tray of various food items was pushed in. Fran didn't want to eat. Caleb managed a few bites. Henry and Jack split the rest. "Even if you're scared and don't feel like eating, you should. We need our strength." Jack told Henry.

It was a few hours later when the door opened and Serena entered in a full medical suit that covered her from head to toe. They couldn't really see her mouth, but could tell by her eyes that she smiled in relief when she saw them. Caleb went to run to her, but Jack held him back. "You don't want Nena getting sick, Caleb," he whispered in the little boy's ear. Caleb nodded and cried.

"No talking from you," the man with a gun at the door said. It seemed to be directed at them, rather than Serena.

Jack watched Serena efficiently make her way through all of them, inserting an IV port, taking a vial of blood. Serena risked words. She was working on Henry. "I'm going to keep these IV ports in. I probably am going to need another blood sample in a few hours and it will just be easier."

Jack was amazed at her confidence and efficiency. She put the ports in, taped them down, and took the blood she needed. She placed gentle hands on them as she did so. "You hold on, Nana," she said to Fran.

When it was time to do Caleb, she talked through the whole process. "Did you know, Caleb, that when you were a little less than a year old, I came home from school one day, and you smiled at me and said, 'Nena!' and you've always called me that since that day. And when I'm having a bad day, all I think about is you calling me Nena. It makes me smile every time."

When she got to Jack, she didn't say anything at all. But Jack felt it, once the port was in his arm and taped down. Serena drew the blood and one hand went to grasp his when she was done, just like she'd done with the others. But he felt something small and firm placed in his palm and kept his hand shut around it, sharing a look with Serena.

Serena left just as quickly and surprisingly as she'd come in. The door was shut and locked again. Jack excused himself to the restroom and when he was in there he opened his palm, finding the small vial with a label on it, and on that, very small handwriting. He read the words, then smashed the vial in sink and flushed the pieces down the toilet.

The next time Fran had a coughing fit, Jack went to her. He placed his arms around her and whispered, "Keep coughing. Serena's going to be back soon. She's going to give you something that will make you feel better. But when she does, you need to pretend at first that you can't breath and your heart hurts. For about thirty seconds."

Jack felt one of Fran's arm come around him and squeeze in acknowledgement.

* * *

><p>Derek sat on one side of the table in the briefing room with Penelope and Hotch, laptops in front of them, wireless earpieces in their ears. They'd been listening to 911 calls for what felt like forever, just trying to grab onto anything.<p>

Emily slept on the chair beside him, her head in her arms facing him. They'd set up a sleep schedule, and Will, JJ, Rossi and Reid were in Hotch's office trying to rest. But Emily refused to leave. It was almost physically painful to look at her. The idea of three days just kept churning in his mind. He reached a hand out. He wanted to touch her face, but knew he shouldn't. Instead, he went for her hair and gently ran his hand down it. He couldn't open himself up to the fear and sadness he was feeling or he'd never be able to function. He did second best. He leaned forward and whispered, "I love you," in her ear.

The door to the briefing room opened and the two men appeared again, with more bottled water. All Derek saw was himself stepping behind them and snapping their necks. Instead he hit the button on the laptop's keyboard that brought the screen back to street camera surveillance, just like Penelope and Hotch did.

"I apologize," the man with the mole on his wrist said, "I didn't know when I came in here before that you had kids missing."

_Oh, you want to play, Fucker? _thought Derek.

"Yes. We're still looking for street camera surveillance that might find them. So far nothing. It's brutal," Derek said sadly.

The man came around the table to look at the computer screens. He nodded his head. "I'm very sorry," he said.

"We'll find them," said Derek. "Can I ask why you're doing this? Delivering water and food?"

The man looked sad, "We volunteered. It's pretty dead up in our area. People were either in DC before the lock down or they're in quarantine."

"And what area is that?" asked Hotch.

"Homeland Security," the man responded.

And sheer absurdity almost made Derek laugh out loud. He held back though. "We appreciate what you're doing..." he said to the man.

"It's Agent Jackson," said the man.

_I am going to put a bullet through your head the first chance I get, Agent Jackson,_ thought Derek.

"Thank you, Agent Jackson," said Derek.

The man nodded and he and his partner stepped out the door, closing it behind them.

Derek returned to his 911 calls on autopilot.

_911. What is your emergency? _

_I'm on my roof looking for looters and there are two men on the street down the ways shooting up a car. _

_Sir, are you at 1771 Landon Place? _

_Yes. It's a dark blue, small sedan. Wait. It just crashed. They stopped shooting. One of the men just opened the door to the car and pulled a man out. Blonde hair. I can't see much else from here. _

_OK, sir. We'll get someone out to investigate..._

Derek cut off the call. He didn't show any emotion, though his heart was thumping in hope. He sent the audio to Garcia, like she'd instructed them to do via messaging rather than words.

He saw Garcia receive it, listen and start to type frantically. The slight shake of her head was almost imperceptible. It didn't match any of the addresses they had from Jacob for people possibly involved in this.

Derek messaged her, "Who else lives on that street?"

Garcia started typing again.

Derek and Hotch waited. It felt like an eternity before the message appeared on their screens. "One house owned by a ghost entity. I can't find the name anywhere else. No taxes, no nothing. I'll keep digging."

* * *

><p>Serena was efficient, making sure everything she did looked authentic. She spent several, unnecessary hours on the process, making up steps that made it look like she was doing what she needed to do and taking the whole thing seriously.<p>

Dr. Lamont had been so focused on a cure and an inoculation that he hadn't even communicated that he had something temporary; he was probably beyond communication at that point. And it was ephemeral. Serena tested the blood samples she had, just to be sure, and the antiviral Dr. Lamont had created without knowing it held up. When introduced with the blood of an infected person, the virus started to die. Based on Dr. Lamont's notes, she made an educated guess that the proteins would start breaking down in the blood system in about five days. After that, a person was susceptible to being infected again. But five days was more than she'd thought she had a few hours ago.

She had enough to keep her family going for a little while. She could give them the antiviral again if she had to. And again. She could buy them fifteen days to get to someplace safe, someplace very cold, someplace secluded. Someplace where Serena could actually work on a real cure.

But all of the cards would have to line up, and she, along with Fran, would have to be superb actresses. And she'd have to be a killer. Serena accepted she'd have to kill some people. She moved across the counter in the back of the small lab like she was on a mission to go back and forth between the microscope. Each time she did, she swiped another vial of pentobarbital and put it in the same holding container as she'd put the real antiviral. She made sure to note in her mind where each vial was settled in the container.

"I think I've got this," she said.

It was silent for a long time. "One of your crew, first, Serena. Pick someone. Then we test and wait and see."

It was exactly what Serena was hoping for. She nodded. "My grandmother. I'm telling you, this is going to work. I wouldn't test it on someone I loved if it didn't."

The guard led her out and Serena clasped the vial in her hand. The door was unlocked and opened. Serena stepped in and walked right up to Fran. "This is going to help you, Nana. It might not feel really good at first, but it's going to make you well again," said Serena.

Serena took Fran's IV port in her hand and she injected the antiviral into it. There were several beats of silence before Fran started convulsing. She gasped for breath and placed one hand on her throat. She placed another on her heart and then drew her body up into a ball. She shook and moaned like she was in agony. And then she stopped. Her eyelids fluttered shut and her breathing returned to normal.

_And the Academy Award goes to Fran Morgan, _thought Serena with a smile.


	6. Chapter 6

Penelope sent Jacob the 911 call and they'd both gone on the hunt for the true identity of the mystery owner of the house near where the 911 call originated. Penelope uncovered the truth first.

Jacob's computer dinged with the encrypted message - _I'm almost positive the Inovax Corporation owns that house._

Jacob's heart jumped. This was it. Certain employees at Inovax had been under suspicion regarding the creation of this virus. And if it was Inovax that was involved, Jacob knew who else was likely involved as well, at least some of the main players. Inovax had contributed heavily to an extremely conservative Republican party to try and defeat the President in his bid for a second term back in 2020. With a new election coming up in just about two years, he had some ideas as to the truly corrupt and reprehensible reason behind this virus. Who would the world love better than the men who paid to make sure there was a vaccine discovered for a horrible and deadly virus?

Jacob knew it wasn't supposed to go down like this, though. As things stood, there wouldn't be any voters left in a couple of years. The reality was there wouldn't be any left in a couple of months.

One part of this whole thing was no longer a mystery, though. Jacie Pritchard had been taken from that school with Serena and Henry because it was convenient, and it put up some smoke and mirrors to deflect suspicion.

He shook his head and sent a message back to Penelope._ Let me go have a look at the place first and make sure this is it. I need to see the place in person and see what we're up against. I'm going to get you out of there soon. If I pull you out now, the people inside headquarters will suspect you know where Serena and the rest are. We need to be positive we're right about this house before that happens._

_OK. We're all not feeling well now, except Hotch. The rest of us were all together for dinner on Sunday night. _

Anger surged in Jacob directed towards the people responsible for this and he slammed his fist on the table.

"Jacob Hawthorne losing his cool. I never thought I'd live to see the day," said Adam with a smile.

"Well, if we don't get a miracle, you likely won't be alive to ever see it again," said Jacob grimly, and the smile disappeared from Adam's face.

Jacob typed a message back to Penelope giving her his address. _For when it's time. Stay off the main highways - they're a disaster. Wait for my signal. Be safe. _

Adam pulled up satellite images of the house owned by Inovax and the surrounding area. "We'll need to fly dark and low, but we can get there in about ten minutes. The hill slopes down right there, behind that tree line. We could land there and go in on foot to have a look. The trees will conceal us right up to the back side of the property." said Adam.

Jacob nodded. He stood and entered a code on a panel on the wall. The door in front of him clicked and he pulled it open. He'd never been a man who operated with guns and weapons, only computers and electronics. But two years ago, when he saw what a truly fucked up and divisive world he was living in, he'd changed his mind. He believed in being prepared, and he was thankful for that mindset now. He handed Adam a Kevlar vest and put one on himself. He placed binoculars equipped with night vision in a bag. Two hand guns, two Beretta M12s, and several rounds of ammunition followed.

"You hate guns," said Adam.

"I don't hate guns. I hate being shot at, and carrying a gun is an invitation for someone to do just that. But I doubt we'll have a choice here."

Adam nodded seriously. They made their way out of the large safe room in Jacob's house and out his back door to the helicopter. Once they were in the air, Adam crackled over the microphone, "What are you thinking about?"

"I'm thinking it was no chance circumstance that got Serena Morgan to Inovax last summer. I'm thinking maybe she does have a miracle up her sleeve, if we can just get her out. And then I'm thinking about where we go from there, because there is likely a huge group involved with this, and I'm worried they're going to be right on our tail once we have her. Until they die out. Planes are likely out..."

"You're getting ahead of yourself, Jacob. That's more unlike you than losing your cool."

Jacob took a deep breath and calmed himself. Adam was right. One thing at a time.

They landed in the dip behind the treeline and made their way to the house on foot, completely hidden by the trees. Once they got near the property, they dropped down and belly crawled.

"I'm getting way too old for this shit," Jacob whispered.

"You and me both," said Adam.

* * *

><p>Serena returned to the lab after treating Fran. "In an hour, I'll go back and take more blood and you'll be able to see that the virus is disappearing," she said aloud. She turned to look at the counter. "Oh, crap!" she exclaimed convincingly.<p>

"What?" asked the man guarding her.

Serena quickly moved and opened the refrigerator that stored the anti-viral. She used her body to block the guard's view and quickly pull the spark plug on the visible temperature gauge.

"Something's wrong with the refrigerator. I can't see the temperature. Get me one of those portable units, otherwise the vials in there could be ruined," she said in a frantic voice.

The man pushed his gun behind him and bent to lift the portable refrigeration unit. Serena turned it on and was relieved to see it had a full charge. She set the temperature and moved the vials to the portable unit. "I'm glad we got back here and saw that in time," she said as sincerely as she possibly could.

Her guard nodded. He hesitated and looked around the room, then asked, "Am I going to make it?"

Serena could tell that whomever had been talking to her through the speakers wasn't likely there at the moment. This was good news, but Serena's resolve faltered. The idea of killing terrible people still bothered her greatly, but she could see past it to save her family. The idea of killing someone who was looking at her with frightened eyes was something else. But she managed the lie. "You have several hours until your fever gets too high. I'll give you the anti-viral in an hour, once your boss, or whoever it is speaking to me through the ceiling, sees Fran's blood and gives the okay."

The man nodded, but still looked unconvinced, and that worked for Serena. She needed to be as mobile as possible very soon and the clock was ticking.

"Look, I'll show you," she said. Serena took off her headpiece and then unzipped her suit. The man pointed his gun at her as she did so, but then dropped it again. Serena smiled at him, "See? I'm not worried."

She couldn't see his mouth, but she could see by his eyes that he smiled back in relief. _Stay strong, _she reminded herself.

Serena continued with the rest of her plan, her stomach knotted in nerves and fear. She couldn't falter now. Getting information about the anti-viral out to as many people as possible once they got out of there was key. She could remember every single thing she'd read in the journal and seen on the laptop, and recreating the pertinent information wouldn't take her much time at all. But she needed to make sure if the man on the speaker never showed himself until the end, she still had a trump card to help her family walk out of there. That trump card was making sure the pertinent information only lived in her mind.

She casually sat down at the laptop, and flipped to a blank page in Dr. Lamont's journal. And, while to her guard it looked like she was looking between the laptop and the journal, writing notes, Serena quickly selected every single file on the C drive, right clicked, and selected delete. Then she emptied the trash. It wasn't full proof, and there could be another copy of the information out there, but it was the best she could do. She continued looking between the laptop and the journal for several more minutes.

"Yep," she said as she closed the laptop and looked confidently at her guard, "This is going to work."

* * *

><p>Jacob and Adam lay on their stomachs surveying the property through binoculars. The mansion's first floors were lit up, and there was a light from the third story as well. There was no way to see just how many people were in there, though. There didn't appear to be any armed guards outside on the back of the property.<p>

"I'll follow the side gate and go look at the front," Adam whispered.

Jacob nodded. Adam was five years his junior, but it wasn't his age that made the difference here. Adam had always been superb in these situations, and he still moved silently. Once he was a few feet away, Jacob couldn't hear him at all anymore. Jacob kept looking through the binoculars, trying to get any clue. This was a fortress. If Serena and the rest of the group was in there, it was going to take more than just the two of them to get in and get to them.

Adam was back in minutes. "No guards out front," he whispered. "Slight movement on the roof. I can't be sure. I think there's someone up there, though. I saw the van that took the old lady and the little boy."

"Fran and Caleb," Jacob whispered. He needed Adam to start relating to these people as humans he had some concern for, instead of just objects in an operation.

"Fran and Caleb," Adam whispered.

Jacob met his eyes and nodded. The started slowly backing away from the property. Once they were some distance away and standing, Jacob said, "We're going to need the rest of them to do this."

"They're all sick," said Adam.

"Not that sick yet. We can't go in just the two of us."

"Good people are going to probably die once you give the call to get them out of the building," said Adam.

Jacob turned to look in Adam's eyes. "Everyone might be dead at this point. But really good people are definitely going to die if I don't get them out," said Jacob firmly.

Adam nodded. "OK, Jacob. Let's do this. I'm in. I've never lost when I trusted you."

Jacob grabbed the walkie-talkie attached to his belt. He hit the button and spoke into it, "It's time."

"Roger that," a voice replied.

Jacob and Adam picked up a steady jog and made their way back to the helicopter.

* * *

><p>Serena had originally been allowed to put ports in and draw the blood of four men a few hours earlier. Once Serena had shown a projected image on the wall, of Fran's blood before the injection, and Fran's blood work after, the mouthpiece in the ceiling sounded excited and hopeful.<p>

"I need a few more test subjects," said Serena. "Your men are the worst off. If this works on them, you'll know you have what you need."

Three men showed up in the room outside the lab, their ports already in. Serena couldn't be sure where the fourth was, or if there were more guards out there. This was the best she was going to get. Her heart was pounding quickly and she was just trying to breath slowly so she didn't start perspiring and look too exceptionally nervous. She was going to inject these men with enough pentobarbital to stop their hearts. A lethal injection for heinous criminals, and that's what these men were, she reminded herself. After that, she was going to have to grab a gun, get to Jack, Henry, Caleb and Fran, and get them the hell out of there. She'd never even come near a gun. _Piece of cake, _her mind told her, and she almost laughed, surprised her subconscious still had sarcasm left in it at this point.

All of the men had their arms on the table, their ports available. Serena stayed focused and serious, but there was a lump in her throat she couldn't quite swallow past. "Remember," she told them in a calm voice, "You're going to feel really awful at first. Your heart is going to hurt and it might feel hard to breath. That will last about a minute, maybe a little less. After that, you'll probably slip into unconsciousness for a bit." Serena paused and swallowed past the biggest lie of all. "After that, you'll start feeling better."

She was surprised when her hands stayed steady. She felt like her heart knew this was their best option, even if her mind was second-guessing itself. She started with the two men she didn't know first. She didn't flinch when the first man started convulsing after the injection, quickly moving to the second. She was plunging the syringe into her guard when he looked at her in fear, like he just realized what she was up to. "I'm sorry," she whispered, blinking back tears.

She stayed focused, placing her hand on the gun around her guard and lifting the strap off his shoulders as he convulsed and flopped forward. When the door burst open, Serena didn't hesitate. She had tears in her eyes, but she blinked them back. She saw Senator Elliot Pritchard standing there, a look of pure shock on his face, and Serena fired. She didn't know exactly how a kickback of a gun could feel. She flopped back hard on her bottom, but she must have struck Senator Pritchard, because she registered a grunt and then saw him run and disappear from view.

She couldn't stop now. Could not pause for a second. She stood and made her way out the door, towards the room that held her family. She flipped the deadbolt. "Move!" she yelled.

And all four people she loved and cared about so much stood instantly and followed her, back to the room. She handed the gun to Jack. And Jack looked shocked, but held the gun in front of him and pushed Henry, Caleb and Fran behind him, their backs against the wall.

Serena ran into the lab and went to the portable refrigeration unit. She opened it and threw handfuls of syringes on top of the vials, then closed it. She grunted as she lifted it in her arms, but her adrenaline was pumping and she could carry it.

She made her way back towards her family, and Henry relieved her of the heavy burden in her arms. They walked the opposite direction from the room that Caleb and the rest had been held in, figuring it led to stairs and it did. Jack lead the way with his gun, but it was eerily quiet on the stairs. They walked up and into a large kitchen. Jack picked up the pace and they followed him, running towards the front door, which opened when Jack turned the handle.

Serena felt some relief when they descended the steps on the front porch, but then gunfire sprayed in front of them, bringing them to a halt.

* * *

><p>They were all awake in the briefing room at the BAU, though they weren't feeling the best. Emily and JJ were the worst off, but they were still standing and functioning, for the most part. Both of their coughs were sometimes so harsh they had to bend over just to catch their breath, and that might be a problem, but they could work with that in the moment. They were all just waiting. It was two o'clock in the morning, and they were guzzling coffee, getting ready. They just didn't know what Jacob's signal would look like.<p>

The door to the briefing room slammed open. "Get your vests on," demanded a man in full riot gear. It was the man Rossi had talked to at the main entrance of headquarters when the lock down occurred. He was flanked by two others. "Your friend says it's time to go, Scout."

They all stood in unison and quickly got on their vests, grabbing their guns. Derek and Emily shared a look of resolve, love and strength.

"Car keys," said the man at the door.

"I've got mine. I can fit everyone," said Rossi.

The man nodded. "Let's go then. Stay close. We're going out the side entrance to the parking garage. If we go down, keep running. Stop for no one."

They nodded and started out the door, the three men with rifles flanked them and set the pace. They made it to the exit door that would lead them down the stairs and to the parking garage, but they were barely in the stairwell when they heard gunshots from above.

The three men pushed them back against the wall and raised their guns, firing upward.

"Go!" yelled one of the men, and, guns drawn, they made their way down the stairs. Derek was aware of footsteps behind him and he looked back to see all three of their guards still standing, firing up and behind them, and still moving.

One floor away from the parking garage, and one guard member went down. They reached the landing of the garage, and another went down. It was the lead guard who was still standing. JJ and Emily both started coughing at that point, and Derek saw Will and Reid grab the shoulder straps on JJ's vest, while Garcia and Hotch grabbed Emily's, keeping them upright, keeping them moving forward.

Derek flung open the door to the garage and watched the team run past him. Rossi was in the lead, guiding them to his car. Derek looked back and saw a gunshot from above blast the leg of their lead guard. Derek reached forward to grab his hand, and the man screamed, "NO! Run! I can hold them off."

Derek yelled over the gunfire, "Thank you!" and he bolted out the door.

Once the door that lead to the garage closed, the gunfire was muted for a moment and Derek heard another sound. A dog barking. _Aurora_, he thought. Derek hadn't thought much about their family dog in several hours with everything else going on. Derek had come for lunch at the BAU, left the dog in his truck with the windows opened well enough, and ordered her to stay. Usually he came back from lunch with his friends and Emily within an hour. It had been well over twelve hours, and Aurora had stayed faithfully in the truck. But now that she'd seen him, Derek looked back and saw Aurora sticking her body through the space in the truck's window, trying to push her way through.

Just then the stairwell door opened and Agent Jackson burst through, his gun raised. Derek turned around and fired blindly, then kept running. Agent Jackson fired back, and Derek watched as JJ was hit in the arm, grunting and falling forward. Will grabbed JJ and the team ducked behind a car and Derek joined them. He looked at Hotch and Emily and nodded, and they all stood to fire. Agent Jackson was ready and fired back from behind a different car.

They ducked down again. Derek was having a difficult time catching his breath and Emily was coughing again. The adrenaline was working, but every muscle in his body ached when he thought about it. He felt hot and it hurt to breathe. There was still muted gunfire from the stairwell that he could hear. He pushed his head up to look at where he thought Agent Jackson was and saw the agent running towards them. Just then a bolt of brown and white fur shot out and knocked into Agent Jackson, who went down.

"Go!" yelled Derek. And the team started moving again. "Aurora, come!" Derek yelled. But he didn't look back. They made it to Rossi's car before he turned, Aurora right at his heels. He saw Agent Jackson picking himself up off the parking garage floor and Derek took aim. He hadn't aimed to kill in over four years.

The bullet pierced Agent Jackson right in the forehead. _Just like riding a bicycle,_ thought Derek.

They piled into Rossi's car, Aurora clamoring for a spot on Derek's lap and Derek and the rest of the team looked back to the stairwell doorway as Rossi backed up. The door burst open and more men came out.

They weren't out of this yet. "Drive," yelled Reid and Penelope at the same time. And Rossi hit the accelerator.

* * *

><p>Jacob and Adam had just reached the helicopter when they heard gunfire coming from behind them.<p>

"Shit!" yelled Jacob.

They both climbed into the bird. "Get us up!" yelled Jacob from behind Adam's pilot seat. He grabbed one of the machine guns and loaded it with ammo.

Just as they were lifting off, Jacob heard a weak voice from the walkie-talkie. "They're out, Sam. They all made it out, but there are a few people in pursuit."

"Fuck me," exclaimed Jacob.

"Where do you want me to go?" hollered Adam.

Where would Emily want them to go first? It wasn't even a question. Jacob screamed over the whir of the helicopter blades. "Get to the house. We've got to get the kids."

* * *

><p><em>AN - Aurora was the family dog they got in Fata Morgana, if you haven't read that. I should also probably add that when I was four and watched the Wizard of Oz for the first time, I could have cared less about Dorothy, but I freaked any time I couldn't see that Toto was safe on the screen. I didn't intend to include Aurora in this story, but my 4-year-old self couldn't let that dog go. LOL. _

_Happy Thanksgiving, my people! :)  
><em>


	7. Chapter 7

The gunfire came from behind them, and when the bullets hit the ground in front of them, they froze, then turned to face back towards the house. Serena saw the shooter on the roof, leaning over with a machine gun. And she saw a bleeding Elliot Pritchard on the porch, a gun in his hand.

Henry, Jack and Fran were keeping it together pretty well, but little Caleb was falling apart. Serena grabbed his hand and squeezed it, then pulled Caleb behind her, trying to shield him from the impending gunfire.

Jack, with the gun, stepped in front of Serena, but she pushed him out of the way, pushed him to stand in front of Henry and her grandmother instead.

"It's not a cure," she said loudly to Senator Pritchard. "It can keep you going for a few days, but it's not a cure. And there's not much of it. I erased the laptop and the only way to create more is with information I remember. Let them go and I'll give it to you."

Serena heard Fran gasp and Caleb's sobs getting louder behind her, interspersed with his coughing. "Serena," Henry whispered harshly. Jack didn't say anything at all, but Serena could feel him tensing up beside her.

Then the thumping of a helicopter could be heard and it was getting closer. Serena glanced up and saw the shooter on the roof turn to look behind him. There was the sound of a multiple gun shots and the shooter was pushed back and fell over, off the roof, landing in a thud a few feet in front of Serena and the rest of them.

And then everything happened so fast. Senator Pritchard raised his gun. Fran screamed, "NO!" and moved more quickly than Serena thought her capable; she moved from behind Jack and flung her body in front of Serena. Elliot Pritchard got his shot off and Serena's beautiful Nana crumpled on the ground in front her her. Then Jack fired his gun and Elliot Pritchard fell to the ground.

The sound of the helicopter was right behind them now. Serena didn't look back. She fell to her knees and touched her Nana's face. Fran was still breathing. "Nana," Serena whispered.

* * *

><p>Adam cleared the tree line and flew towards the house. "One shooter on the roof!" he yelled a few seconds later.<p>

Jacob braced himself in the back of the helicopter, he waited for the turn he knew was coming, and then he saw the shooter. He fired multiple shots without hesitation and saw the shooter stumble backwards and fall off the roof.

Adam turned the chopper again and flew over the house to the front, and Jacob saw it all happen in front of his eyes: Senator Pritchard on the porch, the kids and Fran in the walkway. He saw Senator Pritchard raise his gun and saw Fran Morgan fly in front of Serena to take the shot, but before Jacob was at an safe angle to fire himself, Jack Hotchner took care of Senator Pritchard.

"Set us down!" he yelled.

Jacob jumped from the helicopter before it had completely settled on the ground. He ran and grabbed Caleb, who was too scared and inconsolable to walk on his own legs. "Get in!" he yelled at the rest.

Henry was holding something heavy, and Jacob with his fast mind realized that this might very well be the miracle he was hoping for. Henry moved towards the helicopter, but Jack still stood with his gun raised, looking around and hovering over Serena, who was crouched on the ground over her grandmother. Jacob placed Caleb in a seat in the back of the chopper, yelled at Henry to buckle him in, and ran back. He bent beside Serena and yelled, "Let me get her."

Serena looked at him, and there was a little spark of recognition, but Jacob did not know how.

"I'm Jacob," he said.

That seemed to snap Serena out of her shock. She nodded and stood, took hold of Jack's arm, and watched as Jacob lifted Fran off the ground and ran back, gently placing her in the helicopter. Serena and Jack followed right behind.

"Keep pressure on the wound and hang on!" Jacob yelled as he climbed in. He picked up his gun, crouched by the open door of the chopper, and shouted at Adam, "Head towards Quantico. Let's see if we can find them!"

* * *

><p>Serena knelt on the floor of the helicopter and found where Fran's blood was coming from - halfway between her shoulder and chest. Serena felt numb, but was acting on autopilot. She couldn't fall apart now. She placed her hands on the wound and pressed down firmly as her grandmother moaned.<p>

She glanced around and saw Caleb crying uncontrollably, buckled into a seat. Henry sat on the floor beside him with the refrigeration unit between his legs, in shock. But Jack was still tense and alert, the gun up and ready, facing away from them, and kneeling next to Jacob, looking out into the night. Serena couldn't take this all in; it was just too much. As the helicopter lifted off, Serena looked to her right, to take a deep breath and gather herself. But what she saw instead was something just as haunting as the view in the helicopter - Jacie Pritchard with her hands pressed against the glass of one of the upper story windows, looking at them as they took off with a fearful expression on her face.

Serena turned her head to look back at her Nana. She could see Fran's lips moving, but couldn't hear her over the loud sound of the helicopter. Serena bent her head and placed her ear near Fran's mouth.

"I've had a good life, Serena, but the best years have been since you and Caleb came along," Fran whispered.

Serena finally let a few tears actually fall from her eyes, but she tried to hold on. She still had her parents and the rest of the team out there somewhere and it was all so overwhelming. Her only two choices were to stay strong or completely fall apart to the point that she was useless. She'd just killed several people, her grandmother had been shot, and she didn't know where the rest of her family was or how they were doing. She had to hang on.

Fran whispered again, "You hold up half the sky, Serena."

Serena allowed herself a brief moment of recollection from a couple of years back. Serena had had a bad cold and stayed at Fran's house while her parents went to work. In her memory, Serena's cheek was resting on Fran's thigh, and Fran was gently rubbing Serena's head, reading her some of her favorite poems.

As the helicopter blades whirred and Fran's blood flowed between Serena's fingers no matter how hard she pressed down, and Serena's heart felt like it was going to beat right out of her chest, she bent her head so her mouth was near Fran's ear and quoted a part of the poem. "But you held on, your tired arms holding up that scowling sky, until slowly, sweetly, softly it began to clear to a field of velvet blue, light like your palms' touch once was before your hands had to harden for war."

Serena raised her head and saw a small smile on Fran's face. Her lips started moving again and Serena bent her ear next to Fran's mouth. "You hang onto that, Serena. You'll have your field of velvet blue again," she whispered weakly.

Serena raised her head and pressed her lips quickly on Fran's forehead. She raised her voice, "I love you. You hold on, Nana!" she demanded loudly. And she pressed down on the wound and just waited. Caleb's cries eventually became quiet and Serena saw Henry reach his hand up and grab the little boy's hand. And that's what Serena focused on. She kept the pressure on Fran and saw Henry and Caleb holding hands, and Serena remembered the point to all of this - to get her family to safety some way.

Her attention was diverted about ten minutes later when the pilot shouted, "I think I see them!"

* * *

><p>Rossi sped down side roads, heading north at first, in the direction of DC, towards Jacob's house. The evidence of what had transpired since they'd been locked down at headquarters was everywhere, lit up by the moonlight. A line of cars now abandoned on the road, heading the opposite direction, people who had been trying to flee DC and Virginia. They could see people sitting up or walking on the side of the road and in the distance. These people had likely left their cars when the traffic came to a standstill, and opted to escape on foot. But escape to where? And now, maybe some of them were too sick to make it far.<p>

There were fires burning in the distance, and everything was just eerily quiet amidst the chaos. Rossi often had to swerve off the road and drive in the embankment on the side because in the attempt to escape, people had abandoned the rules of the road. There were stopped cars on his side of the road, facing them.

"Jesus fucking Christ," muttered Hotch from the passenger seat in the front of the car.

JJ, Will and Penelope were in the back row of the vehicle, Will with his hands pressed firmly on JJ's arm, trying to stop the blood flow.

"We've got headlights coming up quickly behind us!" shouted Rossi.

Emily turned immediately in her middle row seat and yelled, "Get down!" to the back row. She was settled between Reid and Derek and she saw Derek push Aurora off his lap and onto the floor. All three of them faced the back of the car with their guns raised. Emily fired the first shot to blow out the back window.

The first round of shots exchanged was rapid, and Rossi swerved to avoid being hit. _Great,_ thought Emily. _Hand gun v__ersus machine gun in a car chase. _They really didn't stand a chance.

"Why do they care so much about us?" cried Penelope.

"They're pissed off!" shouted Derek.

"There's other options," said Reid loudly. "Serena found what she needed to find, and isn't giving it to them and now they want us as more leverage. Or she's close to finding it, and they don't want us to find her."

As Rossi swerved and gained a little distance between them and the car chasing them, Emily tore her eyes away from the back of the car and landed on Reid. Then she shared a brief glance with Derek. The first option would mean their daughter was maybe playing hardball, and Emily couldn't even imagine Serena pulling something like that off. And if whoever took Serena needed the team, what did that mean for the fate of Caleb, Henry, Jack and Fran? It was just too overwhelming to analyze the possibilities. Still, they were all dead in a matter of days probably, so she allowed herself a brief moment of the slimmest sliver of hope. Their deaths were almost a certainty without that, even if they escaped the car chase.

She coughed briefly and took aim again at the back window.

"We've got a helicopter heading our way," hollered Hotch. "Turn right into the field," he commanded Rossi.

But they quickly realized the helicopter wasn't after them. It turned to the side and let their car pass. Emily heard Hotch shout, "Was that Jack?" as they passed under the helicopter. Emily's heart hammered in hope again. If it was Jack, then it was likely Jacob in that helicopter, and if he had Jack, he hopefully had the rest of them, too.

The gunshots were loud and fast, and all but Rossi turned to look behind them. They saw the car chasing them get hit multiple times, swerve and crash.

"It's Jacob," hollered Emily.

The helicopter moved into a position to fly low in front of them and it lead them around abandoned cars, finding clearer roads, guiding them towards Jacob's house.

* * *

><p>Once the car holding Emily and her family was safe and following the helicopter, Jacob moved to kneel beside Serena. He reached his hand out and felt for a pulse on Fran's neck. There wasn't one.<p>

"She's gone, Serena," Jacob said softly in the girl's ear. "You can stop the pressure now. I'm so sorry."

Serena shook her head, then turned to look at Jacob. Jacob was surprised she wasn't crying more. Just a few tears were dripping down her face, but when she lifted her hands away from Fran's wound, Caleb realized what was going on and started sobbing again. "Nana," he cried over and over again between sobs and coughs. He undid his seat belt and fell to the floor, resting his head on Fran's chest.

Serena put one blood-soaked hand on Caleb's head. "Our parents?" Serena asked.

"I think they're okay. They're in a car and they're following us to a safe place."

"Are they sick?"

Jacob nodded.

"I'm not feeling very well. I need to treat them and myself quickly."

"Is it a cure?" asked Jacob.

"No. It's temporary," said Serena. Then she slumped her body and let it rest against Jacob's. "There's a picture of you in our house, when you were much younger, riding an elephant with my mom. Your eyes are still the same. That's how I recognized you," Serena said over the whir of the helicopter blades.

Jacob had no idea what had occurred in that mansion, but the kids and Fran had all gotten out, and gotten out with something to help sick people, even if it was temporary. He couldn't even imagine how a twelve-year-old had pulled that off. And for the first time in forty years, Jacob put his arms around the shoulder of a child and repeated the words he'd once told Emily when she was about this age. "You are spectacular, Serena."

Jack moved and knelt next to Caleb, placing one gentle hand on the little boy's back, and one on Fran. And then Henry shifted his position so he could touch Fran as well. "Thank you, Fran," said Henry. All of them were crying freely, except Serena. She seemed to have monumental strength.

The helicopter eventually touched down and Jacob let go of Serena. "I need to open the gate so your parents can get in," he told her.

Jacob jumped out and went to open the gate, and the SUV pulled in. Jacob jogged up to the car. The doors opened and Jacob watched and counted. Jack ran out of the helicopter to hug his dad, Henry at his heels to reach his parents. JJ was bleeding but it didn't seem too bad. Emily and Derek were standing in front of him, tears in Emily's eyes.

"In the helicopter," was all Jacob said, and they turned and took off. Jacob felt tears in his own eyes. He'd done it. After decades of being a spy, he finally felt like he'd accomplished something truly good for truly good people.

Adam approached him, and there was a brief look of shock at the fact that Jacob Hawthorne actually looked emotional. Adam didn't mention it though, firmly saying, "We need to clean up, make it look like the car and helicopter crashed to keep people off our tail."

"I know," said Jacob thickly. "Give them a minute first."

* * *

><p>When the others ran out of the helicopter, Serena and Caleb stayed with Fran. It was only moments later when Serena saw her mom and dad climb into the helicopter. Her mom crawled in and gathered Caleb and Serena in her arms, crying. Her dad touched Fran's neck, feeling for a pulse, and Serena whispered, "She's gone. She died to save me."<p>

And then her dad's arms were surrounding them all, leaning over Fran's body, holding them tightly. And Serena allowed herself to finally cry. "I'm sorry, Daddy. I wanted to get them all out," she sobbed. And her dad squeezed them all tighter, all of them crying, and Serena felt him kiss her cheek.

"You have nothing to be sorry for," he whispered.

Serena nodded. Despite the overwhelming sadness, Serena still relished the warmth she felt from her mom, and the safety she felt in her father's arms.


	8. Chapter 8

Emily kept one arm around Serena and held Derek's hand while he carried Caleb in his other arm, up the steps and into Jacob's house. Jacob was carrying Fran. He walked down a hallway and they stood in the doorway and watched him gently lay Fran's body on a bed. He turned to face them. "I'm very sorry. We can bury her when it's daylight."

Derek set Caleb down and walked towards the bed. He bent over and kissed Fran's forehead. "Goodbye, Mom. I love you. Thank you," he said softly. He stood and Emily saw him take a deep breath, getting himself together. Serena had calmed down, Caleb was still hiccuping between coughs, and Emily was trying to gather herself, but she really felt so awful at that point that she was surprised her legs were still carrying her.

Derek turned to look at Jacob and stuck out his hand. "Thank you, Jacob. For my children, and for all of our lives."

Jacob cleared his throat, shook Derek's hand and said, "I'm glad I was able to help."

Emily had many questions about where Jacob had been and how he'd managed to be the one ordering the lock down at FBI headquarters, and keep the team out of Georgia the Friday before, but it wasn't the time. They were still running for their lives, and running out of time with this virus. A cough shook her body and she felt Serena squeeze her around her waist. "I can help you with that," her sweet girl said.

"Come on, let's join the others," said Jacob. And he placed a hand on Emily's shoulder, giving it a squeeze, before leading them back through the house and down a flight of stairs that led to an open, thick steel door.

Emily took in the scene before her. A man, the helicopter pilot she assumed, had ripped the sleeve off JJ's shirt, and was cleaning her wound. "Through and through, not much muscle damage. We'll get you stitched up and you'll be as good as new pretty soon," he said. Penelope was sitting at a bank of computers, looking at the view of security cameras that showed different areas of Jacob's property. Hotch was sitting on the floor, his arm around Jack, and Will was doing the same with Henry. Rossi and Reid were staring at a computer screen that showed a very scary looking world-wide map. Georgia was covered in red, as was most of the surrounding states. The rest of the US and the world for that matter did not look good. There were red dots everywhere.

Serena stared at it and stepped closer. "The spread of the virus?" she asked Jacob.

"The best I can estimate, yes. That's as of this moment, based on statistics of who flew in and out of Atlanta last week and where they were from, assuming someone is contagious twenty-four hours before they show symptoms."

"It's forty-eight hours," said Serena quietly.

Jacob took a deep breath and let it out, "Then that just got a whole lot worse. We need to figure out what we're going to do. But first, we need to buy us a little time here, so we can rest and plan. Mr. Rossi, is there anything in your vehicle you need?"

Rossi shook his head. "Dave is fine. Or Rossi."

Jacob continued. "OK, Dave. Good. I'm going to need someone to drive my car. We're going to take your car and the helicopter and make it look like both crashed. I have no idea how many people are involved with this, what they know, or how many of them are already sick, but having that helicopter and your car in my driveway or the vicinity of this house is not a good idea. The people chasing you likely didn't die in that crash. I'd like to cover our bases. Them thinking we might all be dead, even for a little while until they investigate, will give us a small head start."

"Would it be better if they found a body?" asked Derek softly.

Emily felt the sympathetic gazes of everyone in the room fall on Derek, and she felt tears pricking her own eyes again.

Jacob placed a hand on Derek's shoulder. "No. One body won't deter them for long. We won't be staying here, but I think it will give you some peace in the future to know where your mother is buried."

Derek nodded sadly.

"I'll drive," Rossi said.

The pilot turned to face JJ again. "I'm going to wrap this up tight. I'll take care of the stitches when we get back." Then he looked at Jacob before glancing at the rest of them. "I'm Adam, and it looks like we're all in this together from here on out."

Emily saw Jacob give Adam a small half smile.

Jacob went to a door and punched in a code, opening a large closet full of guns, grenades and so many other weapons and supplies Emily couldn't even take it all in from where she was standing. "Should anyone show up while we're gone," Jacob said seriously. "There's a bathroom," he pointed. "And in that closet is food and water, some clothing and blankets. Use whatever you need. We'll be back in about thirty minutes."

People murmured thank yous, but Emily could see that everyone was shell-shocked and scared. Caleb was shaking between her and Derek, and Derek bent to pick him up again, gently holding his son in his arms. Then she watched Serena gather herself even more. She stood up straighter and went to the bathroom. Emily followed and saw Serena scrubbing her hands, washing off Fran's blood. When she was done and turned to face Emily, she didn't look like her little girl. She looked serious and far older than her years, even for her. She smiled at Emily though. "Let's get you feeling better," she said.

* * *

><p>Serena went on autopilot again, pushing down her emotions. She addressed the group in the room as she went to the refrigeration unit and pulled out fourteen syringes and fourteen vials. "What I have is going to kill the virus in your system, but only for about five days. After that you'll be susceptible to getting infected and I'll need to inject you again. I have enough for each of us to have three rounds of the antiviral. Penelope, I need you to get the email addresses or any contact information for any lab that can produce vaccines, world-wide. We need to get the information about how to create this out to as many people as possible."<p>

Everyone just stared at her in disbelief that all of this was really happening. Serena still had a hard time believing it herself. Penelope finally nodded and got to work on the computer. "Henry, Jack and Caleb, let's do you first and get those ports out of your arm."

Serena felt the eyes of the room on her as she injected the three boys. Her voice sounded robotic to her own ears, "I convinced the people who took us that I needed as many blood samples as possible so I could get ports in their arms. Then I gave the antiviral to Nana and they saw that it was working. Then I gave three of the guards lethal injections instead of the antiviral. That's how we got out of there. I didn't make the antiviral. Dr. Lamont did, but he was too sick at the end to realize it."

She stopped talking. All she could see in her mind was the look on her guard's face right before he died. She closed her eyes and shook her head. She didn't meet anyone's eyes as she went around the room, giving her family what they needed in order to make them well again, at least for now. Nobody asked questions, maybe sensing she wasn't up for answering them yet.

She gave her dad the antiviral last, and finally raised her head. Her dad had tears in his eyes. He reached his hand out to touch her cheek, and Serena blinked back tears. She wanted to sob and crawl in his arms and cry about killing people, cry about her Nana, tell them about the look on Jacie's face as the helicopter pulled away. But she didn't have time for that now.

"What about you?" asked her dad.

"Adam can give me my injection when he gets back."

She stood and went to the computers. She pulled up a window and started typing quickly, writing detailed instructions that would help whomever was still capable re-create the antiviral, giving them information they needed that might lead to a vaccine that would be more permanent.

"How long will it take to make more, Serena?" asked Spencer.

"For a well-equipped, modern lab? About ten days. They need to grow some cultures first. If people were smart, some labs have probably already started that process. If that's the case, four days. But then they have to mass produce it and get it out."

Spencer cleared his throat and looked back at Jacob's map. Serena knew what he was thinking. She realized it herself: much of the world would be sick or dead by then. Or crazy.

They let her finish typing. "Send it out," she said to Penelope, and Penelope squeezed her hand. Everyone was keeping it together exceptionally well at that point, and Serena was thankful. She was feeding off their strength.

"How long will the infrastructure hold up?" Emily asked Spencer. "How long will we have power, the internet, fresh water...?"

"It really depends on how long people can hang in there and keep things running. A week? I wouldn't count on it for longer than that."

Jacob, Adam and Rossi returned then. Serena injected them, explaining again about how the antiviral worked, and then Adam gave her her dose. He went to work stitching up JJ after that.

Serena faced the group, finding her mom's eyes. She was sitting on the floor and Caleb was in her lap. Her dad's arm was around her mom. "Do you know what happens with this virus after three days?" Serena asked hopefully, hoping she didn't have to explain.

But everyone in the room besides Jacob and Adam shook their heads. Serena went to sit next to her dad. She felt his arm come around her and she allowed herself to feel some comfort. She was brief and matter-of-fact. "Twenty percent live without their fevers getting too high, but they can be infected again. The other eighty percent reach very high temperatures, the virus mutates and then goes into the brain. The virus dies when the temperature reaches 107 degrees. Half the people die from the high fever. The other half are left with multiple, large lesions on their ventromedial frontal lobe."

She met Spencer's eyes. He understood. "Leaving us with highly aggressive people that largely only know a rage response?" His tone was uncertain, like he was almost wishing Serena would tell him he was wrong.

"Yes," she said.

The room was quiet, interrupted only by the lingering coughs of a few of the group. It would probably take a day before the coughing subsided. Serena felt her dad's arm tighten around her and he kissed her forehead. "Serena..." he whispered. But she looked at him and shook her head.

"Don't, Daddy. Not now. I don't want to talk about it all yet."

"Let's say it takes two weeks for someone to produce more of the antiviral and get it out to people. How much of the population will even be left by then?" asked Hotch.

Jacob's response was quiet, "In the United States? Maybe fifteen percent. In other areas of the world, probably closer to twenty-five or thirty percent."

"It's coming up on winter, and some places are already pretty cold. It might not be quite that bad," said Serena. "We need to go someplace very cold. The virus can't live on surfaces or in the air below ten degrees, and it doesn't live as long on surfaces between eleven and thirty-two degrees. The colder it is, the fewer infected people we'll find. I need a lab though. I can make more of the antiviral and I can work on a vaccine with the right equipment."

The group watched Jacob and Adam share a glance. "Ah shit," said Adam. "Not that frozen tundra."

"It's our best option. I'm going to go with the worst-case-scenario here. Anybody left who started all of this probably knows Serena has the only treatment. They're going to be looking for her, and they're desperate. As long as they are alive, they are going to be hunting her down because it's really their only chance, until someone makes more, and that's going to take a little time. Besides that, this place is going to be crawling with lunatics that outnumber healthy people in about three days and we need to get out of here. Hannah will help us, Adam. She owes me one."

"Who's Hannah?" asked Hotch.

Adam answered, "We used to work with her, a long time ago. She owes Jacob because Jacob took a bullet for her one time. After that, Hannah got out of the game, went back to her native roots, trying to bring some independent, modernized sustainability to the Anaktuvuk Pass in Alaska. We visited her once, about four years ago, and it took me a month after returning home before I felt warm again." Adam paused and looked at the group, changing his negative tone after taking in their faces. "But it wasn't so bad. She's done some amazing work. They've got a barn and goats, green houses. We'll adapt." he said with a smile.

* * *

><p>Jacob got pillows and blankets and the kids fell asleep on the floor. Emily and JJ, who had been the sickest, slept along with them. Emily had Caleb next to her, her arm reaching over him and holding onto Serena's hand. Aurora was curled up at their feet. JJ was clinging to Henry's hand in her sleep.<p>

Derek planned with the remainder of them, staying singularly focused on the task at hand so he didn't think about his mom, or the fact that his beautiful, loving daughter had had to murder people in order to survive. He'd tried using a land line to contact his sisters, they'd all tried using Jacob's land line to contact other members of their family and their other close friends, but even when they'd gotten through, no one answered.

Jack stayed awake and told them his side of exactly what happened in the mansion. His voice cracked when he said that he shot Senator Pritchard, but Hotch put his arm around his son and said, "I'm proud of you, Jack." Jack smiled. It was the first time Derek had seen Jack smile in months, and it gave him some comfort.

Jacob had used a Ham radio and gotten in touch with someone in Anaktuvuk Pass, Alaska who said they'd track down Hannah.

They laid out a paper map on a large table. "Planes are out for right now. All commercial and private planes have been grounded, at least in the continental United States and Canada. I don't know about elsewhere. Even if we got in the air, we'd be ordered to land or likely be shot down. Military planes are still up in the air, and I do know people, but I can't say I trust anyone anymore. If anyone finds out what Serena is holding, well...desperation can turn even good people insane."

Reid looked at the map. "We'll need to stick to smaller roads, ones that will be less congested with stopped cars hopefully. It will probably take us five days to get to Fairbanks on those kinds of roads, if we don't stop to sleep and just rotate drivers through."

"How do we get past the border in Canada? It's not like we have passports on us, and not all of us have badges that might help." said Derek.

"We don't want you using your ID's anyway," responded Adam. "I'm not sure border patrol will even be there in a couple of days. It's all chaos out there. But in case they are, I know a way in. I've used it before. We'll need to cross over in North Dakota."

"Gas?" asked Hotch.

"We'll figure that out. Regular gas pumps should work. If not, Adam and I have siphoned gas before and we can do that again if we have to. I have some here, enough to get us some distance. We'll take my SUV and Adam's. They're both here and we'll all fit. We'll need a lot of winter gear. We'll take what I have here, and wing it with the rest as we go," said Jacob.

"And how do we get to the Anaktuvuk Pass from Fairbanks?" asked Penelope.

"We're going to have to trust Hannah with that one. Planes are the only way. But I'm thinking in five days, there won't be much of anyone who will put up a fuss about us flying," replied Jacob sadly.

Everyone looked at Jacob and Adam, uncertain and worried. Adam smiled, "Hannah, Jacob and I once got right into the middle of Moscow, and got into the private residences of some heavily guarded people to set up surveillance. We're still alive. This should be a cakewalk compared to that."

The Ham radio crackled and a warm voice said sarcastically, "Jacob Hawthorne, you son of a bitch, I knew you'd be calling me someday when things inevitably went to absolute shit in the lower forty-eight."

Jacob smiled and picked up the radio. "That pretty much sums things up. How are things there?"

"Almost as shitty. No sick people on my Pass, or in Point Hope from what I've heard. But our population is a little less than half of what it was yesterday. Barrow and the other places around us lost an even larger percentage of their population. The National Guard sent in planes and choppers to evacuate people to Fairbanks and Anchorage. People were scared they were going to be cut off from supplies up here and they panicked and took off. I told my community to stay, that we'd be okay here, but most of them didn't listen. Now I'm up here scrambling to keep things going with fewer bodies. But we can make it, as long as the people in Barrow keep the power going. They will."

"I can offer you up fourteen able-bodied people to help," said Jacob.

There was silence for a few seconds. "Are you going to sprout wings and fly in from Fairbanks? In case you haven't heard, I can't take a large plane up in the air."

"Hannah, I don't think that's going to be a problem in five days, which is about how long it's going to take us to get to Fairbanks."

"This virus is that bad?" asked Hannah.

"That bad. We're not sick, though."

"And if I get into Fairbanks to get you and I get sick?" asked Hannah.

"Have a little more faith in me than that," said Jacob.

"I can take a few guesses as to what that means. OK. Five days?"

Jacob looked at his watch. It was 4:00am. "We need to get a little rest before we start driving." He glanced at Derek, "And we have a couple of things to attend to. We'll leave in about eight hours."

"Jake, I've got to make a run into Barrow tomorrow. I'll have Internet access there. Email me the approximate sizes of the people coming. I'll try and gather some supplies. Also housing needs. We've got a lot of vacancies up here now, so that shouldn't be a problem. "

Jacob glanced at Serena where she was sleeping. "We're going to need some other supplies, too."

"Let me know what and I'll do my best. I'll see you in Fairbanks on Monday afternoon. Let's say 2:00 my time. Same airplane hangar I met you at when you came to visit me. I'll figure out the plane logistics. Is Adam with you?"

"Yes."

"Good. I need another pilot. I'll see you soon. Be careful out there."

Jacob disconnected and turned to face the group. "You can trust Hannah. She's eccentric and sometimes overly-enthusiastic about things, but she'll be there. We should all get some sleep."

They nodded and Derek grabbed a pillow, curling up on the ground behind Emily. She turned when she felt him settle beside her. She placed on hand on his cheek and whispered, "I'm so sorry. I love you."

He didn't want to start crying again, and he couldn't really find words to express himself without breaking down. He brushed his lips gently against hers and pulled her tighter against him. He heard her whisper in his ear, "The Arctic in winter. We'll see the northern lights for days on end."

* * *

><p>They buried Fran under a tree in Jacob's expansive backyard at noon on Wednesday. It was more than just a funeral for Fran - they were all mourning the loss of family and friends they had to accept that they'd never see again. They were saying goodbye to their homes, and the memories they contained, to the lives they once knew that were ripped away from them by truly evil people who had let a heinous plan get out of control.<p>

They held hands and cried, each working through a loss that seemed larger than anything they could really comprehend. When they'd each said their goodbyes, either out loud or silently, Jacob spoke up. "In the spring, this tree will bloom with white flowers."

Serena closed her eyes and tried to visualize it. Fran would have liked that. She knelt on the ground and placed her hand on the fresh dirt. "I'll stay strong, Nana. We'll stay together and we'll find happiness somehow. We'll all make it, for each other and for you."

The cars were packed with clothes, food, water, gasoline, guns and the small refrigeration unit that contained the antiviral. Before they left, Serena asked Jacob for a few more things. He nodded and ran back into the house. He brought back a stack of white paper and a plastic bag full of colored pencils.

Serena settled in the back row of Jacob's SUV between Caleb and her mom. She started drawing, planning to recreate the pictures she remembered in her mind, not just of her immediate family, but of everyone, of people she didn't know, but the pictures of them she'd seen in the team's houses over the years, to replace all the pictures they were leaving behind.

She started with the picture she'd seen at Hotch's house so many times, of Haley and Hotch and Jack, when Jack was just a baby. She felt her mom's hand on her head. "I love you, my sweet girl," she whispered.

Serena managed a small smile. Her heart was heavy with loss and she was scared they might not make it. But she was still hopeful. She was still her parent's sweet girl, despite what she'd done in the past twenty-four hours, and for now, that was enough.


	9. Chapter 9

_A/N: I fee like I'm stuck getting through to get to the other side. But...the other side is coming. :)_

* * *

><p>Reid drove the lead car, putting his eidetic memory to use. He'd memorized every side road, every little-used country road by studying maps earlier that morning. Their path wasn't the most direct, but it was working. The roads were open for the most part, and speed limits were meaningless anymore.<br>Adam sat next to him, gun ready, keeping a lookout for anything dangerous.

Jacob drove the second car, following closely behind, and Derek rode next to him in the front seat, also with a gun ready. Driving through the more populated areas of Virginia was dicey. There were still people looting and fighting, people reacting to the madness that was now their world. Derek looked in the back row frequently. Serena had switched seats with Caleb so he was now in the middle, between her and Emily. They tried to shield him from the frightening world outside the car windows. Penelope and Rossi, with Aurora between them in the middle row, would often turn around to engage Caleb in a conversation when there was something particularly disturbing coming up on the road.

Caleb eventually fell asleep, snuggled close against Emily's side, as they left the larger towns behind. Out there, sightings of human beings were almost what you'd expect. Occasionally there were people on the side of the road, people who'd chosen to escape the cities by walking, but you could also see that many were sick, their bodies often shaking with the unmistakable signs of coughing.

"These roads are probably this empty because cell service went down so fast," Penelope said at one point. "People don't know how to function without the map applications on their phones anymore."

"I expect that service will come back up soon," said Jacob. "As more people get sick, there will be fewer people flooding the cell towers. But then we'll likely lose it again in a few days."

Derek sighed beside him, lost in thought. They'd all destroyed their cell phones so they couldn't be tracked. Jacob held a single phone that was safe and untraceable.

"Still thinking about the decision we made, not spreading the word about the colder climates ourselves?" asked Jacob.

Derek nodded. He was thinking about that, and his sisters, and Judy who lived across the street from them who was like family. He was thinking about all of the teenagers he'd worked with and helped throughout the years, guiding them to better choices and better futures, and how it all seemed so pointless now. And Serena. He couldn't help but feel his daughter was going to crack at some point. She'd been tasked with being stronger, smarter and more resilient than was right to expect of most adults. All that careful planning and decision-making so that she could still be her age much of the time despite her intelligence, and her childhood had been completely stripped away in the past twenty-four hours.

When Derek didn't speak, Jacob continued. "Reid and I both ran those numbers and statistics, Derek," said Jacob sadly. "If people flood the colder climates, they will also flood those areas with infection because they won't know they're sick yet. It might not spread as fast in those areas, but you bring in enough people who are sick and don't know it, and that won't matter. The best chance for the most human lives preserved is for those people in the colder areas to hunker down and not deal with the influx of an infected population. We got the message to the CDC and FEMA. They're going to have to decide how to facilitate it. There will need to be quarantine units."

"I know," said Derek, his head facing out the side window. "It's still a hard reality to swallow, saving some of the population by saying nothing to the rest, because the CDC may opt for that."

Rossi leaned forward and placed a hand on Derek's shoulder. "We put the word out about what happens when a fever reaches 104, to as many people as possible. We got emails out to friends and family, people we could trust to understand what we were saying, about finding someplace cold and remote, but to not go into any major towns or cities. If they're well, maybe they'll see those messages. Maybe they'll make it. But Jacob and Spencer are right. We need the people in colder climates to stay alive if the human race stands a chance. The whole point here is that if Serena or someone else comes up with a vaccine, there's someone to give the vaccine to."

Derek turned in his seat again. He met Emily's eyes and she nodded sadly at him. Then he looked at Serena and saw her staring at him, tears streaming down her face. She was trying to be quiet so as not to wake Caleb, he could see that. But this was the breakdown he and Emily had been expecting, one of probably many she'd have.

Emily reached her hand out and brushed it across Serena's head and Serena leaned into that touch for comfort. She glanced at Caleb to make sure he was still sleeping before whispering and shuddering, "I'm scared I won't be able to do this and everyone I love is going to die. And then there's a part of me that doesn't want to be the person who has to do this. I wish I wasn't this smart. But then I know if I wasn't, if I'd never been at Inovax last summer, this still would have happened and we'd all probably be dead or crazy by Friday. I keep trying to tell myself that this is better. But we keep driving past sick people and we can't help them. We just keep driving past because we don't have any other choice."

Serena turned to look at Emily, who also had tears in her eyes. "I promised Nana we'd find happiness again, but what if we can't?" Serena whispered.

Caleb was still sleeping, but there wasn't another dry eye in the car at that point. Derek glanced at Jacob, and even he had tears in his eyes.

Penelope undid her seat belt and turned completely in her seat. She put her hand on Serena's cheek. "Once we get to someplace safe, we can find that happiness. It's what all of us do when we're together and everyone is safe - we're happy. Think about what Adam and Jacob told us about Hannah and what she's done at her home in Alaska. That's what I'm thinking about. I'm thinking about Caleb learning to milk a goat and Henry teaching the people there how to play a mean game of soccer when the snow melts in the summer. I'm thinking about all of us together in a house on a cold night, drinking something warm and playing games or just talking. I'm thinking about all the stars in the sky we'll see. I'm thinking how incredibly bored I'll be without a computer and I'm hoping you'll take me on as your assistant. Think of all the brain power you have between these two cars, Serena. We'll figure this out together. And we will be happy again."

Serena smiled and nodded against Penelope's hand.

"I'm thinking about what Penelope is going to do without her wardrobe," said Rossi.

Penelope turned back in her seat. "I'm going to find a way to make snow gear fabulous."

Finally there was some light laughter in the car. Derek reached back and gave Penelope's knee a friendly squeeze. He wanted to say so much to Serena, but not here in the car with everyone. He settled for meeting her eyes again and giving her a smile. And she wiped her face and gave him a small smile back. She moved her body so it was leaning lightly against Caleb's sleeping form, and Emily put her arm around Serena's back. "We love you, Serena. We will figure this out together." Emily whispered.

* * *

><p>After eight hours, they stopped on the side of a deserted road to go to the bathroom and brush their teeth. Derek and Caleb ran Aurora for a bit, just back and forth on the road near the cars while the rest stood on look out. It was silent in the non-populated area in Ohio. They'd seen evidence of blockades at the Ohio and West Virginia border, but they seemed deserted now. They tried to find radio reception, but couldn't get any actual news, just the emergency broadcast system stating over and over to stay in your homes, to try and treat high fevers. There was no official directive on what to do should someone's fever be untreatable and hit 104, and nothing yet about moving to colder climates.<p>

They wanted to hang onto their spare gas in the containers in their cars for when they crossed into Alaska. Sometimes they came to gas stations that had been deserted, and occasionally they came to ones that were staffed, but those attendants did not come outside, and they didn't go in. Jacob unveiled a multitude of credit cards with various aliases. He swiped and the pumps still worked.

They switched drivers and front-seat passengers and kept going. But just before dawn the next morning, when they'd crossed into Iowa and were getting ready to cut north near Cedar Rapids, the walkie-talkie in their car crackled with Adam's voice. "I lost a lot of money when University of Iowa beat Georgia at at Georgia this past Saturday."

The car woke up and saw large flames in the distance.

"You think that's it? Players and fans who got sick and now have crossed into insanity?" asked Rossi over the walkie-talkie.

"It's just a thought. I don't want to get close enough to find out."

A few hours later, they came to a small rest stop that looked deserted. They decided to get out and stretch and give themselves a chance to wash up in the bathrooms. They were careful, with two people standing guard outside the bathroom and others taking turns going inside.

Emily was standing with Hotch and Jack at the cars, trying to put together some food from the cooler in the back of Jacob's SUV when she heard Hotch hiss, "Emily."

Emily turned and saw three unarmed men approaching. There was something wrong. Their pace was steady towards them, but they were completely absent of facial expression. Hotch raised his gun and yelled, "Freeze!" But they just kept coming, picking up the pace when they saw the gun, but still no reactive facial expressions.

Emily heard Jack implore, "Please, Freeze!"

When the men didn't, Emily and Hotch took them out quickly. That was how they learned what to look for. Uninfected looters had facial expressions, and there might be the opportunity for negotiation if they ran into them; the people who had survived the high fever had brain lesions that prevented them from making any facial expressions, and they had no ability to reason. They would need to shoot on sight in those situations.

They continued north, switching drivers every six to eight hours, shifting who was in what car for variety, staying on small roads. They occasionally had to slow and crawl through traffic jams created by abandoned cars, but that became fewer and farther between the further north they made it. Caleb was restless, but doing well overall. They all talked a lot, about happy memories in their past, and things they were curious about in their future, things they were looking forward to. They all kept it positive, for Caleb, and because of him, they started feeling more positive, too, the closer they got to their destination without any major incident.

They'd mentally given themselves thirty-six hours to get to North Dakota, given the fact that they were on side roads. But it only took them thirty, thankfully, because about two hours after they'd crossed into North Dakota, the emergency broadcast system message changed: _We are advising people to move north to colder climates to help stop the spread of this virus. We've closed smaller roads into our states that border Canada. If you are able to drive, please head towards the nearest border state on the main highways. You will be directed to quarantine camps. It is advised that all citizens who are able head to our northernmost states at this time. We repeat: Only enter from the main highways - all other roads are blocked.  
><em>

The message went on to list evacuation points for those who could not drive, places where people could be airlifted into the colder states, provided they were showing no symptoms.

Serena smiled and hugged her dad when she heard the news, but Adam swore. "Shit! I mean, this is good for what we ultimately want, but Canada is going to be locked up tight. We need to change our Virginia plates so we don't piss of any of the extremists in North Dakota, and haul ass to my friend's house. We need to get into Canada and back out into Alaska, and we're going to need help."

They found an abandoned gas station with some cars parked there and switched out their plates, and then they did haul ass, reaching the outskirts of Portal, North Dakota a few hours later.

Adam lead them to an expansive farm right on the Canadian border. Adam had explained that Mitchell, and his wife Helen, owned this farm. Their daughter and her husband owned a farm across the road, in Canada.

They drove slowly down the long driveway. Emily heard Adam over the walkie-talkie, "Something's wrong. It's night, it's freezing, and Mitchell's cows are still outside the barn. Stay alert."

Henry, Caleb and Serena were in the back row of the second car with Emily, Derek, JJ and Will. Emily turned to the kids and demanded, "Get down."

Adam drove the car around the side of the barn. The house and barn were lit up. Derek, Emily, JJ and Will had made a pact that if they were able to avoid all going into dangerous situations, they would split up so their kids didn't potentially lose both of their parents.

Derek turned to look in the middle row. "JJ? Let's go." And everyone nodded.

Adam crackled over the walkie-talkie. "Mitchell would have greeted us by now if he was able. This whole place has surveillance. We're all on camera right now, so let's be careful."

People spilled out of the first car with guns. Hotch marched Henry over to the second car and put him in JJ's seat when JJ got out. Emily watched the rest of the group split up, half going into the barn, and half going into the house. It was silent outside, and bitterly cold. Everyone returned a few minutes later and gathered around Emily's window. "Mitchell and Helen are both dead, looks like they got sick somehow and didn't make it through the fever. We'll probably find another dead or crazy family in the house across the road. Mitchell's son-in-law is from Alabama, and the only thing I can think is that they must have traveled there last week and brought the virus back with them. We need to get these cars in the barn and move."

They did as Adam said, and then watched as Adam went to a stall in the barn, moved some hay around and lifted a hatch. "Get the supplies out of the cars and let's get them down here. There are carts. I need someone in the lead down here with a gun while we load up."

Emily felt like this was just another extension of the different world she'd woken up in a couple of days ago, one with secret passageways into Canada, passageways she was certain were used for nefarious reasons much of the time. But she was thankful for them now.

"It's about five degrees outside. Is there a reason we shouldn't just stay here?" asked Will

"We need the isolation Alaska is going to give us, Will," said Reid. "This seems remote, but it won't prevent people from driving up. This place gets too warm in the spring and summer to offer us any protection. People could be making antiviral right now, but the reality is that it's only ever going to be a temporary solution, and there's a good possibility that our bodies will build up a resistance to it, just like people do who take antibiotics frequently. If Serena is going to work on a vaccine it's going to take time, and we all need to stay healthy to help her. Plus, we know there's infection here. If these people went to the store or a restaurant before they showed symptoms, people might have caught the virus."

Will nodded. "Got it. I'll take the lead in the tunnel." He grabbed Aurora's leash and carried her down.

The tunnel was wide, well-enforced and long. It took them thirty minutes to make the trek. When they got to the end, Adam whispered, "We're going to come up in the house, not a barn." Adam's eyes searched the group, pausing on Emily and then looking past her. "JJ, Rossi and Derek, come with me. The rest of you, stay here."

When the small group exited the tunnel, Emily turned to look at Jacob, her eyebrows raised at the selections Adam made. Jacob cleared his throat before whispering back, "Because of the pact you made with JJ and Will, and because Hotch is a single father; because this isn't Penelope's field of expertise and you're going to need Reid's brain, and you're going to need me to get to Alaska."

Emily nodded at him, but she knew there was more to it than just that. She had a feeling Adam knew if he made the call to put Emily into a potentially dangerous situation and something happened, Jacob would not react well. She didn't quite know how to feel about Jacob, and she'd told herself that she'd wait until they got to safety before she analyzed those feelings. He'd done something horrible, but it was so many years ago, and she owed him all of their lives. He felt her still staring at him and sighed. "Scout, we'll have time to talk once we're safely in the arctic, okay?"

Emily nodded, but stepped forward and placed one arm around Jacob, giving him a hug. She felt his arms come around her and squeeze back. When Emily pulled away she saw a smile on Jacob's face that she hadn't seen since she was a child.

The moment was interrupted by the muffled sound of a single gunshot coming from above them, followed by Aurora's low growl where she stood next to Serena and Caleb down in the tunnel.

* * *

><p>Adam, JJ, Derek and Rossi came up from the tunnel and entered into the basement of a house. Fanning out, they went through the process of clearing the basement, then climbed the stairs and repeated the process on the first floor. When they got to the second floor, they found an open bedroom door and two bodies on a bed. The woman was dead, but the man was delirious with fever.<p>

"He's too far gone for us to help him," said JJ.

Derek nodded. His daughter had done this to get them to this point, and so had Jack, and he could, too. His instinct was to help someone sick and helpless, but the man in the bed was beyond any help they could give him. Derek took a pillow to cover the blood splatter and placed it over the man's face. But then Rossi stepped up and pushed Derek back. "Your immediate family has dealt with enough," he whispered. And Rossi aimed his gun and pulled the trigger.

They moved down the hall to clear the hall bathroom and then opened the door to another bedroom; an empty young girl's bedroom.

Adam picked up the walkie talkie to talk to the crew in the tunnel, "We're okay. We're clear."

"So where's the kid?" asked JJ.

"If she's alive, I think I know," said Adam.

* * *

><p>They hauled supplies up into the basement and up the stairs. They gathered on the first floor and Adam looked at Jacob and pointed at the wall, "It's there. You need to get in. We need what's in that room. But just know that Mitchell's five-year-old granddaughter may be hiding in there and if she's alive, she's probably very sick or very delusional and insane."<p>

"We found their boarding passes, up in the parents' bedroom on the dresser," said JJ. "All of them flew back from Alabama, via Atlanta, last Thursday."

Serena whipped her head around. "Wait. What? That doesn't make sense. Even if they were only exposed on Thursday, that means illness set in on Saturday. There's no way the man upstairs could have possibly still been alive and still looking sick."

"He was, Serena," said Rossi. "He was delirious and feverish, but he was alive without the lesions and rage."

"I need a blood sample," said Serena.

Adam nodded. "I'll get it. Jacob, you get to work. We need to move quickly."

Jacob nodded and grabbed a bag amidst their supplies. JJ took Caleb with her in the kitchen to cook up some real food and keep him away from might be seen when Jacob was able to get through the paneled wall. The rest all watched Jacob work, getting a glimpse for the first time of who exactly he was on the job. He looked at the seam of the paneled wall, he tapped against different portions, and then he smiled. He went in with a small hacksaw and cut away a portion of the paneling before removing it. They saw him pull out wires and go at them with a wire cutter. They saw him twist various wires together. And then they saw a portion of the wall slide open revealing a multitude of equipment, much of which they didn't understand.

But sitting against the wall in the back of the safe room was a little girl who should have been long dead, or at the very least expressionless and crazy. Instead the little girl raised her teary, wide, green eyes at the group of them. "Are you bad guys or good guys?" she asked with perfect clarity.

Penelope rushed forward and crouch before the little girl. "We're definitely good guys. We're here to help you," she said in a whisper.

The little girl started crying in earnest. But there wasn't a hint of illness. She let Penelope pick her up and wrap her in a hug.

And Serena and Spencer both sank to their knees, comprehending something so hopeful they didn't even think to hope for it. Here was a little girl who seemed immune to the virus.


	10. Chapter 10

Lillian Jeffries was five years old. The little girl sat in Penelope's lap in the kitchen and Emily got her to open up a bit, though she was very frightened, confused and sad. She was able to tell them that her parents started feeling sick on Saturday, when they were at her Grammie and Grandpa's house for dinner, like they were almost every Saturday. The next day she played at her grandparent's house so her parents could rest. The next day, when her mommy couldn't get out of bed because she felt so bad, her dad brought her to her grandparent's house, but her grandparents were sick then, too. After that she couldn't tell them any more about the specific timeline. She came home with her daddy, and she tried to take care of her parents. But her mommy wasn't waking up anymore and her daddy wasn't moving much. That morning, her daddy put her in his office, which they guessed was what he called his hidden room, and told her to stay there.

It didn't make sense that he'd put her in there instead of finding someplace else for her to go, except he was probably very feverish by then and likely not thinking clearly, though he fought the virus better than anyone Serena had read about in Dr. Lamont's notes. He'd shown symptoms on Saturday and was still hanging on by Thursday night. It was unheard of. And now Lillian herself, who had been on the same plane as her parents, had been around both her contagious parents and grandparents, was sitting here and not sick at all.

After they got that initial information out of her, Lillian curled up in Garcia's lap and cried some more. She completely shut down. Emily rubbed her back gently and stood.

Emily and Derek followed Spencer and Serena into the living room where they spoke in excited, hushed whispers. Derek and Emily watched the fast exchange between the two of them and tried to keep up.

"It is statistically impossible that we just happened to walk into the one home with someone who appears to be immune," said Spencer.

"Exactly," responded Serena. "Dr. Lamont didn't test the virus on kids. The youngest were homeless teens, about fourteen and fifteen years old. But Caleb got sick."

"It's far more probable that there are more immune kids out there around Lillian's age."

"Something that happened or changed with immunizations in the past three years, since Caleb was five. But there's nothing significant. No new vaccines."

"Maybe it's a combination of factors, something about inoculation for other diseases along with something genetic or environmental, the same thing the father had inside him or was around in the environment that made him able to hang on so long. But it has to be relatively common."

"Right. Because, like you said, Spencer, it's statistically impossible that this was just a random miracle we discovered right at the house we came to."

It didn't appear that Lillian had any other local family, they had no way to reach or reunite the little girl with her family in Alabama, and Alabama was one of the places people were trying to run away from. They had no time to waste deliberating a decision; Lillian was coming with them. They would talk to her more when they were settled and the little girl was feeling more comfortable.

They gathered with the rest of the group around the hidden room and saw Jacob and Adam frantically at work, with Rossi, Jack and Hotch's help.

"We've been listening to the radio. Canada is letting people return to their homes provided they haven't traveled by air recently. We need Canadian IDs, and, because we have no idea what it's going to look like at the other end of our trek, we need passports that look like we're residents of Fairbanks, for when we cross back over the border. We can make those all relatively quickly here with the equipment they have." Jacob explained to the rest of the group.

"Who were these people?" asked Derek.

Adam looked at them and said simply, "For the right price, they helped people disappear. There are cars out in their garage. That was the process. You leave your car on the U.S. side, take the tunnel, and get a car on the Canadian side. We'll take two sets of plates, Canada and Alaska, and make the registration match a couple of our IDs. We'll switch out the plates as we get closer to the Alaskan border."

The team nodded. Whoever these people were, it didn't matter now. However Adam knew them didn't matter either. They needed what that house offered them.

Jacob spoke up. "Hannah sent me an email. Just some numbers in code. They're map coordinates to what looks like a relatively deserted road outside of Fairbanks. I'm guessing she has our transportation figured out, but the Fairbanks Airport is out."

"We probably need to look a little less like refugees in case we're pulled over or questioned in Canada," said JJ as she looked down at the large sweater of Jacob's she was wearing.

She and Emily both glanced at the ceiling above them and then grimaced at the idea of going up there in a room and raiding the closet of a woman who was lying dead in her bed, a woman who was the mother of the little girl sitting in the other room. But they did it. Like everything in the surreal past couple of days, they all were just operating with the single focus of getting someplace cold, remote and absolutely virus-free.

They gorged themselves on the perishables in the refrigerator, they looted the house without letting themselves think about it, loading up on winter gear. And Penelope and Serena took Lillian to her room to help her pack up some of her things. She was scared about coming with them, but there wasn't really another option. Lillian understood now that her parents and grandparents were dead, and she seemed to know that that meant forever. But she was understandably fragile and cried off and on, and she didn't speak much and she never left Penelope's arms as she pointed to some of the things in her room she wanted.

They let Jacob snap their pictures and then took turns showering, packing up their new cars, and resting on the floor or couches in the living room while Jacob and Adam finished their work.

Emily was standing at the bathroom sink, finishing brushing her teeth after her shower, when Derek walked into the bathroom and closed the door behind him. He stood behind her and they stared at each other in the reflection of the mirror above the sink.

"I'm barely holding on," he whispered. "I feel like a kid who's homesick. I want my mom, and our house and our lives back. I want our pictures and our furniture and our backyard. Every time I get a minute to think, all I see are memories of a place that meant so much to me that we probably won't ever go back to, and I never got to make that decision or say goodbye."

Emily blinked back tears and turned to face him. She felt his arms come around her waist and he bent to rest his forehead on her chest. She kissed the top of his head and took a deep breath. "I'm feeling the same way, but every single time I find myself going down that road, I try to stop and remind myself of everything we still have. We have Serena and Caleb and our memories and our lives. We have everyone else out there who feels like family to us. I just keep telling myself we need to reach our destination. Once we're there, there are possibilities. Either someone else is going to figure out a vaccine and cure, and we might get to go home, or Serena's going to figure it out with our help. And if that never happens, we're likely going to be someplace where we won't get sick. And maybe that place can start feeling like home. Maybe a couple years from now we'll be thinking we could never leave Alaska. I don't know, Derek. I really don't. But I do know that if we're together and safe and alive, we're going to find something good, because we always do. That's what I keep reminding myself. That's how I'm not completely falling apart."

Derek lifted his head and nodded at her before pressing his lips against hers. Emily wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him, trying to pour all the love and strength in her heart into him. He'd lost his mom and walked away from the possibility of saving his sisters; on a deeper level, he'd lost so much more than she had.

He pulled away from her lips and kissed her forehead. "Thank you, Em. I love you."

"I love you, too. We just need to hang on and get through a few more days. I know once we feel like we're settling someplace, we can heal and move forward. You and I, we've danced with the edge of disaster before and we've only ever become better dancers," she said with a small smile.

Derek managed one of his grins, and it looked genuine. "That's very true," he whispered.

* * *

><p>Just before dawn on Friday morning, they were roused awake by Adam and Jacob. "There are people who just entered Mitchell and Helen's property across the road. We saw them on the surveillance screens here. They went right to the barn, people who obviously know about the passageway. We need to go quickly."<p>

They split into two cars that were similar in size to the ones they'd left in the barn on the other side of the border.

Lillian started crying as soon as they got in the car, and she clung to Penelope. Lillian's tears and what had happened to her parents got Caleb's tears flowing again. "Why is this happening to all of us?" he asked.

It was a question that had no good answer. They comforted Caleb with quick pats and hugs and got everyone into vehicles. Jacob and Adam hadn't slept yet, but before they fell asleep in separate cars, they told everyone the cover stories they'd cooked up based on their IDs.

They drove slowly down a dirt road behind the property for ten miles, then cut to the west for another ten miles on a gravel road before finally picking up a paved road. About four hours later, they were able to cut onto Highway 11, just outside of Regina, pleasantly surprised to find the main highway with relatively few cars on it. And in Regina, there didn't seem to be any evidence of the looting they'd seen in towns of its size when they were passing through the United States.

Canada had not been hit with large populations of infected people yet and things seemed to be functioning pretty much like normal, though the absence of cars on the freeway lead them to believe that the people of Canada had respected the order to stay in their homes. They noticed many Canadian Armed Forces trucks driving on the road heading the opposite direction, probably sent to help with border patrol.

About ten miles beyond Regina, they came to a roadblock. Derek and Emily were driving the lead car. Caleb and Lillian were both asleep in the back, sitting on either side of Penelope, and they hoped they'd stay that way.

There weren't many cars in front of them, but they saw one car directed to make a u-turn and go back the way it came. They pulled to a stop when it was their turn. Officers approached both front windows and Derek and Emily rolled them down, letting in the cold air.

"What is your purpose for being on the road?" the police officer at Derek's window asked.

Derek smiled at the officer. "I know we were directed to stay in our homes, but a large group of my family made the trek down to Brandon to surprise my wife's uncle for his 65th birthday party last weekend. We were planning to stay the week, but didn't feel comfortable being so close to the border. It's us and the car behind us, trying to make our way back to our homes in Whitehorse. We took my wife's uncle and some of their family with us. My wife's brother, who also lives in Brandon, is driving the car behind us." Derek shrugged, "It just feels safer up there right now."

The officer raised his eyebrows. "Whitehorse? That's about thirty-six hours from Brandon."

"Well, we took all of last weekend to get there, and were planning to stay the full week and take this weekend to drive home. Plane tickets for a group this large are expensive, so we decided to drive. But when we heard about what was going on in United States, we just thought heading away from the border would be better."

The officer nodded. "May I see the IDs of the adults in the vehicle?" he asked. Then he tilted his head through the window to the officer near Emily, directing him with to investigate the vehicle behind them. Derek's heart was beating wildly as he got his ID out and handed it to the officer, then reached back to collect the IDs of Jacob, Hotch and Penelope, the other adults in the car. The IDs were flawless, with Hotch, Emily and Derek's stating Whitehorse as their residence, while Penelope's and Jacob's said Brandon. There was a similar mix in the car behind them.

"Have any of you entered the continental United States or flown on any commercial airplane in the past ten days?"

"Nope," said Derek calmly.

"Does anyone have any cold symptoms in your vehicle?"

"No, we don't, thankfully," said Emily as she leaned to the side to look at him through the driver's window.

"What is it that you do in Whitehorse?" the officer asked.

Emily gave him a smile, "We board and train horses, officer. Speaking of which, my best friend and her husband came from Anchorage to take care of our horses while we were gone. Is she going to be able to go home, or will she need to bunk down with us?"

The officer took in Emily's innocent looking face and smiled back. "She'll probably be able to get out. That border is still open for Alaska residents at the moment."

"Thank you so much! I'm sure she'll be relieved," said Emily with a winning smile.

The other officer returned to their car. "IDs check out," he said.

The officer near Derek nodded. He reached in the car window and placed a large green sticker in the lower corner on the windshield. "What's that?" asked Derek.

"So we don't slow things up at other roadblocks. You'll be able to pass through. Drive safely and make sure to switch drivers frequently and rest when you need it."

Derek nodded. "Thank you, sir."

The officer nodded at him and waved both vehicles through the road block.

Derek heaved a sigh of relief and Emily reached over to squeeze his hand when they were through. "We're going to make it," she whispered. Then she turned around to smile at the back of the vehicle.

* * *

><p>The rest of the drive was long, and thankfully boring and uneventful. A snowstorm on Saturday slowed them down, but they were still making good time. They got gas when necessary and used the restrooms. Everyone was restless, especially Caleb, Lillian and Aurora, but they muddled through. Serena entertained Lillian by telling the little girl to describe something, and then drawing a picture of it for her. She did not drill Lillian on questions about their family or habits that may lead to an explanation about their immunity, not wanting to pressure Lillian until they were settled. The adults talked, but the conversations were typically short; everyone was lost in thought about just making it, and maybe starting to regain some stability in their lives again. They ate the food in the cars and they drove. About twenty miles from the Alaskan border, they pulled off on an empty side road and swapped out the Canadian license plates for Alaska ones. They pulled the stickers from their windshields, hid the Canadian plates along with their IDs in their things, and got their passports ready.<p>

They were waved through the border into Alaska at just before six o'clock in the morning on Monday. They'd be reaching their destination near Fairbanks with time to spare. They pulled the cars over again and Serena and Adam injected them again with the antiviral, wanting to make sure they weren't bringing any illness into Alaska with them.

"If we make it today, we'll have a lot left. It feels selfish," Serena whispered to the group.

Derek placed a hand on her head, "We didn't know we'd make it this far and fast for sure. We'll use what's left to help the people who may want to come back to Barrow and the Anaktuvuk Pass, Serena. It won't go to waste. I know it feels so wrong, I really do understand. But we did the right thing for our safety and sometimes when choices are very limited, the best decisions are going to feel bad. But we have to let that go."

* * *

><p>When they reached the coordinates that Hannah had emailed Jacob, there was already a small, army cargo plane landed on the isolated, dirt road, though they were almost two hours early. There was ice on the ground and some snow, but not too much, though the air was frigid. There was a small shack a bit in the distance, and not much else to see at all.<p>

They pulled the cars near the plane and came to a stop. Jacob and Adam got out of the cars, guns ready, and walked around the plane. Jacob found a piece of paper on the back of the small cargo ramp. "Had to run an errand. If you get here before me, load up. - Hannah."

They got out of the vehicles and let Caleb, Aurora and Lillian run around with Henry and Jack. Emily and Derek smiled when they saw Serena joining in, being twelve again. They were so close, and everyone was feeling optimistic.

As the time approached 2:00, they started loading up the plane. Emily watched Derek put Aurora inside the plane, and he asked Caleb and Lillian to stay with her.

Lillian, who had not talked much on their drive, raised her eyes at Penelope and did a little dance.

"Me, too," said JJ, smiling at Lillian.

Penelope grinned and grabbed some toilet paper from the back of one of the cars. "Excuse us, gentlemen, but I think all of us ladies could do with a bathroom break."

Emily grabbed a gun for safety and joined Serena, Lillian, Penelope and JJ. They left the men to load up the plane and made their way to the shack and around behind it.

* * *

><p>Caleb and Henry were in the plane with Aurora, but everyone else was making good time, loading up the plane, looking at their watches. Derek was holding one side of an ice chest with Spencer holding the other when he felt a strong tug and was almost pulled off his feet.<p>

He whipped around and found three men, two with guns pointed at their group, and one with a gun pointed at Spencer's head.

"Drop any weapons you have, raise your jackets so we can see your waistband and lift your pants so we can see your ankles."

The group did as they were told and the men nodded. "OK. Now who is your pilot?"

The men raised their guns higher as Adam looked at his watch. "Not us. We can't fly. We were told to load the plane, but the pilot should be here any minute. You can take our cars, though."

"We have cars. We want a plane, and a pilot," the man snarled.

* * *

><p>"I absolutely can't believe that I...ME!...am squatting, freezing my butt off, in the middle of Nowhere, Alaska, to pee," said Penelope.<p>

Serena and Lillian smiled, and Emily and JJ laughed lightly. With the promise of their destination so close, they were all feeling like they were coming back into themselves a little, and humor was an option again.

When they were all done, Emily lead the way around the side of the shack and then stopped quickly holding her hand behind her to tell the group to freeze. "Damn it," she hissed, stepping back behind the shack. She looked at JJ and hissed. "Three men. Two with guns drawn on the group, one of them is holding Spencer with a gun to his head. It's a standoff and we only have this one gun, and I have a crappy angle for anything more than a shot on the man closest to us."

She glanced beyond the group when she saw movement coming over a hill. It looked like a child, not much bigger than Caleb, and whoever it was was pulling an animal of some sort. After a few seconds, the vision became clearer. Not a child, a very small woman, easily well in her fifties, with light brown skin and long black hair, wearing no more than a sweater and jeans out here in the frigid air, a gun slung over her back, and pulling a goat behind her. She saw them standing there, but didn't draw her gun.

Emily assumed this was Hannah, but the look on their faces must have clued Hannah in that something was wrong, because her steps became nearly silent as she approached them. She walked forward and peeked around the side of the shack.

"Those boys. I swear any time I'm in the vicinity of Adam and Jacob when they're together, I have to go in and save their asses," whispered Hannah with a smirk on her face. Emily couldn't quite believe it. This woman's eyes sparkled like this was an adventure and though she was so much smaller than Emily, Emily had the feeling that Hannah could take her down in seconds.

"You're Emily," Hannah whispered, as she crouched down on one knee. "I've seen your picture once. I figured you were part of the group with Jacob, though his email didn't give names."

Emily raised her eyebrows at JJ and Penelope and then turned to look at Hannah, who smiled. She handed the rope tied to the goat to Serena. "Don't let him go, Honey, I have some goats back home I need to knock up."

Then Hannah removed the gun and strap from around her and started whispering as she took the strap off her rifle, handed the rifle to Emily, took off her sweater, and took Emily's handgun instead. "Jacob showed up on my doorstep about eight years ago, back when Anaktuvuk was completely dry, no alcohol allowed at all. He had enough whiskey with him to drown himself and he got drunk and spilled his guts out about what he'd done to you. He showed me your picture."

The whole time the group of them just stared, Penelope's arms around Lillian, trying to keep her calm, as they watched this woman take the strap from her rifle and twist it so she could put her arms in it, creating a strong X on her back with the fabric. Hannah continued, "He left vowing to go back to DC and wait until you needed him, because he owed you. I don't think he's quite done paying his debt for his asshole moves back then, so let's get out of this one, eh?"

Hannah took Emily's gun and placed it in the harness she'd made for herself, right behind her neck. She put her sweater back on and winked at them. "OK, Emily, I know you're a good shot. You go back around the other side of the shack. I'm going to walk out there like I'm caught by surprise. I'm going to hope the man of yours being held has the good sense to duck when a gunshot goes off and the grip is loosened?"

Emily and JJ nodded, still stunned by this small woman. "Good!" Hannah whispered with a smile. "You wait until I'm over in my position and then I want you to take out a leg on the closest man. If it all goes how I know it will, we'll be in the air in a few minutes!"

Hannah stood and marched right out into the open, like she was just on a stroll and Emily motioned for JJ to stay with the others. She brushed her hand gently on Serena's cheek. She rounded the shack, rifle in hand, and got down on her stomach on the freezing ground, lining up a shot on the closest man's leg.

She watched Hannah look shocked and raise her hands in the air.

"You the pilot?" one man shouted.

"Yes!"

"You armed?"

"No."

"Lift up your shirt and pant legs and show us."

Hannah did as she was told, her long hair covering the handgun on the back of her neck. Then she stepped in a little closer.

"Freeze right there," the man commanded after Hannah had taken a few steps.

Hannah froze and nodded her head at the man, but Emily knew that was for her. She took aim and hit the man closest to her in the thigh. She watched Spencer elbow the man holding him and flop to the ground, and before Emily could even get another shot off, Hannah had removed the gun from the back of her neck and fired three clean shots, taking them all out.

Hannah looked back at Emily and yelled, "Nice one!"

Emily stood and met up with JJ and the rest of the girls. Serena put her arm around Emily's waist and JJ stared at Emily. "Well, the good news," said JJ with the sarcasm Emily loved but hadn't heard since this all started, "is that I think we're going to get along with Hannah just fine."


	11. Chapter 11

_A/N: Sorry for the delay. Crazy couple of days!  
><em>

* * *

><p>Penelope carried Lillian and kept the little girl's head away from the dead bodies on the ground near their cars, quickly bringing her up the ramp at the back of the plane and staying there with her to comfort her and Caleb. Serena stood below the ramp, holding the goat, listening to Aurora bark wildly at the animal from inside the plane.<p>

The rest of the group stood outside the plane, skipping the introductions with Hannah for the moment.

"Where did they come from?" Jacob asked Hannah, gesturing to the dead bodies on the ground.

"Not east. That's where I came from. They must have seen me land from some distance because I've been gone about an hour, so it took them awhile to get here. But there's not much out here, so I can't say where they came from from certain. This land belongs to the man I get my goats and chickens from. I asked him if I could land the plane here and take a male goat in exchange for a car. I'm not sure he's going to think two cars and three dead bodies is a great deal," said Hannah.

"Then let's make it one car and no dead bodies," said Jacob.

"Sounds like a good plan," said Hannah. "There's a steep hillside about five miles up the road."

The team understood what they were saying and helped move the bodies into the back of one of the cars. Adam got in that vehicle and Jacob got in the other. Hannah climbed into that car and parted with, "I'll formally introduce myself to you fine people when we get back. Stay alert."

"Is it lost on any of you that we've drastically changed our mindset about right and wrong and good and bad in the past five days?" asked Reid as the car pulled away.

Rossi put a friendly hand on Reid's shoulder, "I don't think we have. We're just doing our best given the circumstances. As much as I hate to admit it, the fact that Adam, Jacob and Hannah have engaged in what boils down to a lot of activity we'd have had to arrest them for as FBI agents, those skills are saving our lives right now."

"And I don't think they're bad people," interjected Hotch. "I think they're a far cry from it. I think they're good people deep down, who did questionable and illegal things for money, but I'd be willing to bet my life on the fact that no matter how much the offer, they'd never have worked for someone like Elliot Pritchard."

Derek turned to look at Emily. "What do you think?"

Emily stared off in the direction where the cars went, no longer able to see them. "I think that until five days ago, the only people I'd trust with my life are all of you. But now, I'd trust them, too. And it is strange and unnerving, Spencer, you're right. But it's the world we live in at the moment."

"In many ways, Hannah, Jacob and Adam are a lot like us," said Will with his drawl.

Everyone turned to look at him. "What I mean is, Hannah didn't hesitate when Jacob called her and asked for help. Just like we'd do for anyone in this group. This woman has risked her life to help perfect strangers, just because someone she obviously cares about like family asked her. I don't think truly bad people would do that. We're all good, no matter what we've done in our past. We're all just trying to survive."

JJ smiled and put her arm around Will's waist. "Exactly," she whispered. "We made it this far. We couldn't have done it without them."

* * *

><p>Jacob, Hannah and Adam made it back quickly. Jacob left the keys in their remaining vehicle and everyone boarded the plane. Hannah brought the goat in and Aurora calmed down once she got to sniff the animal. She wagged her tail like she wanted to play. There were only four seats in the back of the plane that was mostly used for cargo. The youngest four settled in those seats and buckled in, and the rest of the adults settled on the ground. The mood was quiet, nervous, uncertain, with a mixture anticipation. And under all of that was a sadness of what felt in the moment like finality in saying goodbye to their old lives.<p>

Adam got into the copilot seat and Hannah walked through the group with a reassuring smile for everyone.

"Where did you get the plane?" asked Jacob.

"The Army cleared out in a hurry. They left this in Barrow. Tomorrow we can go there and get you whatever supplies you need that I wasn't able to gather for you. There's been a lot of changes in our borough the past few days. Good changes, actually. We gathered people and made a decision to go strictly needs based in terms of supplies. We've stopped using money. Barrow's down to about 800 people. I've got about 100 up on the pass. Point Hope has about the same. The smaller pockets of population have relocated to one of those places. We're working together."

"How did you get past the no-flight rule?" Derek asked Hannah as she passed by.

"A careful flight path through entirely unpopulated areas and I flew dark. No gauges, nothing electrical that could potentially be picked up."

Adam turned around and stared at her. "You landed without gauges?"

"I'm getting older but I haven't lost my touch yet," Hannah said with a wink. "We can turn everything back on once we get over the ridge. Nobody seems to care that we're flying around our borough. And that's good, because it's how we share resources. I've got everything set up for you back home. Clothes, housing. My neice and a few other people are making stew for dinner. It's caribou, it's good, not too hard to get used to. I'll show you around and we'll get you settled," Hannah said with another smile and a gentle pat on Caleb and Lillian's heads. She bent over and whispered to them, "I'm so glad you're here. I need helpers in the barn."

Everyone smiled at Hannah at those words, feeling a little better. She was a nice woman. Lethal when it was necessary, but nice.

"Did you come in contact with anyone in Fairbanks?" asked Serena.

Hannah turned to look at her and Serena continued, "Because if you did, I have something that can kill the virus if you were exposed. It won't protect you forever, but it will help make sure you're not bringing anything back home with you."

Hannah blinked at Serena and then glanced at Jacob before looking back. "No, Honey, I didn't. Are you the one I got all that lab equipment for?"

Serena nodded, hopeful, and Hannah raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Looks like we have a lot to talk about! I got everything except the centrifuge. But there is one at the hospital in Barrow and we can go get it tomorrow. I didn't want to be too obvious about what I thought might be going on here when I saw that supply list, so I didn't enlist the help of the people in Barrow to get it on the plane. Let's get going, okay?"

Everyone nodded and Emily took hold of Caleb's gloved hand and placed her arm around Serena, kissing her forehead.

* * *

><p>It took a little over an hour to get to the Anaktuvuk Pass and the adults sitting on the floor held on tight when they landed. They emerged from the plane to blinding sunlight and a sea of white ice and snow on the ground and the surrounding hills. In the distance, they could see the small town.<p>

There was a truck waiting for them and a woman in her thirties who looked very much like a younger version of Hannah. Hannah deposited the goat in the front seat of the truck. "This is my niece, Alison," Hannah introduced them. "Pile your things in the back of the truck and she'll drive it up. We'll walk."

Hannah looked the group over. "You may want to take off a layer, or two. This is downright balmy compared to what this place is going to be like in about a month, and you should let your bodies adjust."

The team glanced at each other apprehensively, but followed Hannah's instructions. It wasn't so bad, once they got past the initial shock of the cold.

"This isn't exactly where I planned to retire," said Rossi, and the group laughed lightly.

Hannah smiled at him and clapped her hand on his shoulder. "This is paradise. Just a very cold one."

They made the trek into the town and saw people outside, smiling and waving as they passed. "They're glad you're here. They're happy for the extra hands. Most of my people who stayed are elderly. The younger people, they were too accustomed to food and goods being flown or shipped in and they panicked when the National Guard told them that would cease for awhile. But to be honest, I don't think they were ever here for our people at all; it was a ruse. They came in too fast, right after Georgia was locked down, from what I can tell. I think Senator Pritchard made the call so he could get his high-level oil employees out of here."

She almost spit out the name when she said it. "Half of what I've been able to do here is because of money we got from Pritchard Oil when he was able to expand offshore drilling. I'd rather not have a dime and have them the hell out of here, which is what we have now. The people in Point Hope have been celebrating for days. They rely on the ocean for much of their food."

The team and the kids glanced at each other. "Elliot Pritchard's dead," said Hotch. "It's a long story we'll tell you later, but he must not have thought that plan through too much, or he simply didn't know all of the details about this virus, which he helped let loose out there, by the way. The safest place for his employees was the coldest."

"Elliot Pritchard's responsible for this mess?" she asked incredulously.

"Yes," said Jacob, quietly. "Him and dozens of others who think like him, probably."

They walked in silence for several more yards and came to a street where the truck was parked. "I figured you guys would like to be close to each other, so I set you up in the same area. I didn't know about the little girl, though, so we'll need to get another bed into one of these houses. Who is she staying with?"

Penelope didn't hesitate. "Me," she said with a smile on her face, and Lillian looked up at her with a small grin.

Hannah nodded. "We tried to keep everything simple, so you can make the places your own over time. There's food in the fridge at each place, clothing in your sizes on the dressers. I was able to get you some new under garments in Barrow the other day. Everything's been washed. If there are things that don't fit or you won't need, we'll return them to our general supplies for other people."

Everyone turned to stare at her. "Thank you, so much," said Emily with tears in her eyes.

"It truly is my pleasure," said Hannah with a smile. "Why don't you grab your things out of the truck? This first house is set up for the family of four Jacob said was coming. And now I know that's you and your family, Emily. Our community center is on the back of the church over there. Take a couple of hours to wash up and settle in and I'll meet for dinner there around six, introduce you to people, and show you around."

* * *

><p>The house was simple, but comfortable and warm. It was impossible to absorb it all, even though the space was small. Hannah and her daughter and the people of this community had done a good job trying to make them something that resembled a home, but it was hard to get past the idea that nothing in there was theirs; most of it had been left behind by people who'd left and were at far greater risk of getting sick than they'd ever be again.<p>

There was a basic kitchen, a living room with a couch, a couple of chairs and a large braided rug on the floor. There were two bedrooms, one with a queen bed, and the other with two twin beds. There was one small bathroom with a shower. There was electricity and heat.

And they were safe. That's what Emily kept reminding herself in her head. They were here and they were safe, and over time, they'd feel comfortable in the space. She held Derek's hand and watched their children take in the space.

Caleb looked in the bedroom with the twin beds and discovered that there were some toys and games in there. But there was not much excitement and joy in that discovery. This was just as surreal and strange, even to him at the age of eight.

Serena walked slowly around the house. Then she went to the bag Emily had set on the floor by the entryway. She unzipped it and took out the stack of white paper she'd been using to draw pictures on their long drive.

"I remember the day I came to your house for the first time and everything seemed so different and strange and not quite like a home, because it was all so new. You took a picture of the three of us and put in on the refrigerator so I'd feel like I belonged there," Serena said softly as she flipped through the pictures in her stack.

Serena found what she was looking for and took the sheet of paper to the refrigerator. She took one of the magnets and hung a drawing she'd made, a recreation of a picture of the four of them with Fran, taken at Caleb's eight birthday party. In the picture they had their arms around each other and they were smiling huge smiles.

Caleb wandered out of the bedroom and came to stand next to Emily and Derek. They looked at the picture and Serena turned around with a smile on her face and tears in her eyes. "There," she said. "That's better."

She stepped forward to wrap her arms around Derek's waist, and the four of them placed their arms around each other.

"We'll make it a good home," said Derek thickly. "It couldn't be anything besides that if we're all together."

* * *

><p>They met the community, they ate the caribou stew, which actually did taste really good. They were accepted with open arms and Hannah stood at the front of the whole large gathering and started calling out the work that needed to be done. They all got assignments, Reid and Garcia tasked to work with Serena in the clinic.<p>

Hannah walked them all through other places in the town after that, showing everything she'd accomplished in the twenty or so years that she'd been back home - the clinic where almost all of Serena's necessary items were, the green houses that seemed to mostly contain tomatoes and spinach. Hannah explained that each borough grew different things, and Barrow's greenhouses were the largest. And, finally, she showed them her barn. There were goats and chickens and it was all well-lit and warm. "Vitamin D lighting," Hannah explained. "Around the second week in December, we'll be without sunlight for a few months. It's why I'll put people on regular rotations in here and the green houses, so they can get what they need, too."

Everyone was listening to her, but they were also focused on Lillian and Caleb, who were running around with the chickens and laughing. And for all of them, Lillian's laugh was a welcome delight, but Caleb's laugh felt like home.

After that, they made their way back to their houses, and Serena passed them all pictures she'd drawn. There were a lot of teary eyes as she did so, but none so much as Jack's when Serena handed him the picture of him as a baby, with his mom and dad. He wrapped his arms around Serena in a friendly hug and whispered, "The world has a lot to learn from you. And I know they will."

They departed from their friends and made their way back to their house for the night. Despite the fact that they'd mostly been sitting in a car for five days, everyone was emotionally exhausted. Serena and Caleb got into their pajamas that Hannah had found for them, and Derek and Emily tucked them into their beds. It wasn't long before they fell into a heavy sleep.

Emily laid on her side in the bed that didn't feel like hers, looking for the picture of their wedding day that always sat on her bedside table and was no longer there. This was different than the many hotels she'd stayed in throughout the years. She was used to strange beds; she wasn't used to being in a very strange bed that she had to come to terms with being hers for the future. Like Derek had said, they didn't choose any of this, and it was a lot to take in and accept. She had a fleeting thought that she should get up and close the curtains on the bedroom window, but then reminded herself that she didn't need to. The window faced a huge expanse of dark sky and nothing else and dawn wouldn't come until after nine the next morning.

She felt the bed dip behind her and Derek's body pressing itself behind hers, his arm coming around her waist. He moved her hair and kissed her cheek and neck.

"How are you feeling?" whispered Emily.

She felt his breath right next to her ear and heard his soft reply, "I have no fucking clue, Em. Safe and devastated and unsure and hopeful at the same time. Comfortable and uncomfortable. Worried. But when I'm holding you like this and I know the kids are safe right next door, mostly just content. That's what I'm trying to focus on."

Emily nodded, in understanding and agreement. "I love you," she whispered.

He didn't reply with words. She felt his hand move from her waist to her cheek, gently brushing his thumb over her lips. She felt his warm breath and light kisses on the back of her neck. And then she felt his hand move down again, reaching under her shirt and gently moving across her skin. His touch felt like home and security and if she closed her eyes she could see them in their bed, back in Alexandria, when everything felt right and happy in their world.

She reached her arm back and placed her hand behind his neck. "I don't want to close the bedroom door tonight, in case they need us," she whispered.

She felt him nod against her, but he didn't stop the movement of his hand on her skin, reaching up and brushing his fingers gently over her breast. Emily sighed and pressed herself more firmly against him as his hands wandered over her body, under her shirt and then under the elastic waistband of her pajama pants, traveling under the fabric and over her thigh.

This wasn't the first time that they'd silently talked their way through tragedy and sadness with their bodies, but, like all the other times, Emily had a fleeting hope that maybe it could be their last.

They could be quiet and discreet, there in that strange bed in the strange town that felt like they were at the edge of the world.

She moved her hand from behind his neck and placed it under the covers, moving it back and grabbing his thigh, pulling him closer to her. She felt him sigh in her ear and get hard against her. She moved to roll over, but his hand on her hip stopped her. She felt his lips on her ear as his hand gently grabbed the waistband of her pants and underwear, pulled them down. Emily shifted her body and used her free hand to get the material off her other hip, she used her legs to kick the garments off her legs.

Derek didn't move that far away from her as he quickly removed his own pants, and then he was back, the warm skin of the lower half of his body pressed against hers. His hands moved more quickly, stretching to reach to her knees before running slowly back up her body, under her shirt. She turned her head as far as she could and he met her halfway, pressing his lips against hers. Her hand came up from under the covers and she placed it on his cheek, holding his lips against hers as their tongues danced a dance that always felt so familiar and new, every time, even after so many years.

Emily felt his hand move between her thighs. She pulled her lips away from his and lifted her right leg and slung it back over his. The both moaned softly as his fingers touched her. All thoughts of worry and sadness escaped her for the moment. She moved her hips and let herself be taken over by the sensations. How many times had they done this over the years? Thousands, she thought as she closed her eyes and let Derek's gentle touches overtake every other feeling inside her. Thousands of times and so it was with a single, fluid movement that Derek adjusted his position, bringing his left arm under her head and linking his fingers with her left hand, and then pressed inside her.

They were so quiet, but out here in the silence of Alaska, their sharp, soft intakes of breath sounded so loud. She subtly moved her hips in counterpoints to his. Derek's right hand was moving up and down her leg, over her hip and under her shirt. Every gentle kiss on her cheek and neck felt like a promise of a better tomorrow, for all of them. Emily shut her eyes and just felt.

He started moving faster and she felt his hand move between her legs again. She felt the familiar ache and burning in her stomach, spreading down her legs to her toes and she knew she was close. She felt his lips on her cheek move from gentle kisses to a smile and she thought it was because he knew just how close she was to tumbling over the edge. But that wasn't it. He whispered in her ear, "Open your eyes, Em."

And she did. And out that window she thought of covering, she could see those dazzling lights of Aurora Borealis blazing pathways across the sky. They were the lights Derek had run to when he was desperate and needed to heal so many years ago. And there they were, right outside her bedroom window. It was simply too many sensations to take in, how her body felt in the moment, and the vision before her eyes, and what those lights meant to both of them. She reached her hand back again to place it behind his neck and pull him as close to her as possible, but shut her eyes, letting her body silently clench and shatter around him.

She was still trembling when, several seconds later, she felt him bury his head against her neck to muffle the sounds of his own release. It was only then, when Derek stilled his hips and was breathing heavily behind her and whispered "I love you," that she opened her eyes again.

The lights were still there, and she knew they would hold them all for months. This might not have been their choice, the running and moving, but they were alive and together. And in that moment, the small bedroom in the simple house on what felt like the edge of the world started feeling a little more like home.


	12. Chapter 12

Penelope, Spencer and Serena were sitting in the clinic at Anaktuvuk Pass with Lillian while Emily talked to her. It had taken three days gather all of the supplies and equipment, but Serena was now set up to actually attempt to make a vaccine between the equipment there, and what she'd taken from Dr. Lamont's lab, if she could just find a starting point or some clue as to how Lillian was immune. Because Lillian was definitely that. Serena had attempted to introduce the virus to Lillian's blood several times, and it could not grow or infect her. With her father's blood, the virus could, but it was slower moving.

They were still operating under the assumption that there was an component they were missing. Serena and Spencer, and even the rest of the team, believed that there was absolutely no way they'd randomly stumbled across the one girl on the planet who was immune.

Lillian was more comfortable with all of them now, and seemed relatively content with Penelope, though she was still very sad about her parents and grandparents. So that morning, Penelope brought her to the clinic so they could talk to her and Serena could take a few more vials of blood.

"OK, Lillian. So you saw your doctor and you remember getting some shots there. What about anything else? Was there any time you saw a different doctor that gave you medicines or shots?" asked Emily.

Lillian blinked at Emily several times and then nodded her head slowly. "Yes. One time. We went to a different doctor and I got a shot."

"Do you remember what kind of a shot?"

Lillian shook her head. "Daddy said it was a test. That we were getting a test shot to see if it could keep me from getting sick."

"Do you remember when that was?"

"We were visiting Nana and Papa on my birthday. Mommy stayed home with Grammie and Grandpa. Nana and Papa told my Daddy about it. I remember that. They were always worried about getting sick."

"And your birthday is August twentieth?" asked Emily.

"Yes," said Lillian with a smile. "We all got the shot. Then we went back a different day and they took some blood. Then we got on a plane and flew home."

Emily turned to look at Serena and Spencer before taking Lillian's hand and smiling. "You did a good job remembering. I'm going to take you back to the barn now with Caleb. I think the people in there need your help!"

"OK!" said Lillian with a smile.

"Why don't we all go and catch up with everyone," said Emily.

The group nodded and pulled on their outerwear. They dropped Lillian off at the barn with Caleb and the people who working there, then headed to the community center, where everyone else was working on hooking up generators. The town had decided that should they lose power, they would use all generators for the community center, barn and greenhouses, and people could bunk down there. This would insure they still had food, and that they didn't burn through the fuel they had too quickly. The rest of their group had been working to move residential generators the past couple of days.

When they saw Emily, Serena, Spencer and Penelope coming, they stopped working and gathered inside the community center. Emily told them what Lillian had shared with them.

"Dr. Lamont was doing vaccine trials," said Serena. "He mentioned it in his journal. But it doesn't make sense. Why Alabama and if he found something that worked, why not use it?"

"Serena, you started working at Inovax at the beginning of June. In August, they thought they had something promising for the mutated Ebola virus you saw. And that's part of this virus, right?" asked Spencer.

"Yes," said Serena.

"We don't have the benefit of computers here to see if Inovax was running vaccine trials in Alabama. We have to make some educated guesses. The timeline works. We know that vaccine doesn't work on this virus, but it's a component of the temporary anti-viral," said Emily, who had spent several hours with Serena talking about this. She paused and looked at Jacob. "If you were working for Elliot Pritchard, what would you advise him? We need a better whole picture here."

Everyone turned to stare at Jacob, who reddened slightly, not in embarrassment, but in a little bit of anger. "I would never have worked for someone like Elliot Pritchard. I'd never be part of something like this."

"You wouldn't," Hannah spoke up. "None of us would. But if you did, what would you advise him? Elliot Pritchard cared about money, oil and political power. He wanted to rescue people from this and vault himself to the top of the presidential race. He had about two years left to do that."

Jacob stared at her for a few seconds before nodding and hissing. "Fine. If I go there in my mind, once there was a vaccine, I'd tell him to wipe out a population in the middle east with it, so he could step into oil endeavors there and look like a good Samaritan, while publicly saying he was putting millions into the research and development of a vaccine for the virus. The virus would have to be horrific enough to scare the crap out of anyone in the world, which this one is. I'd advise him to tweak the virus after that, make it less easily spread. Then, I'd advise him to pick an isolated area in the US and infect some people. Get the US good and panicked, and then swoop in with the vaccine. I don't believe he ever intended to have a wide-spread epidemic of this on US soil. I'm thinking his initial plan was something like the one I just described, but he was running out of time before the election, like you said, Hannah. They were probably doing vaccine trials everywhere."

With that, Jacob turned and slammed out of the community center. Emily didn't hesitate before following him. She found Jacob around the corner of the building, leaning against it. She stood next to him and took in the fact that Jacob was visibly shaking. It was ten in the morning, very cold, and the sun was barely rising.

She didn't say anything, just stood with him, not quite sure what to say or what was upsetting him so much. It was strange with Jacob; he was her childhood hero, and had spent his adult life doing illegal things. She felt like she knew him so well, while at the same time, she didn't know him at all. And she didn't understand the choices he'd made, but she still considered him a good person.

"I worked for the President. For the past six years. I advised him, I set up surveillance for him. The public only knows the surface level of what was really going on in Washington and how bad it was," Jacob said quietly. "Two years ago, during the presidential election, the president actually lost by about two hundred votes in Ohio. I knew who his running-mate was and what he was capable of, he was just like Elliot Pritchard, with a bit more experience. I didn't want that man in charge of our country. I fixed the results of the election for the President, at his request."

He turned to look at Emily, a lone tear falling from his eye and quickly freezing on his face. "If I hadn't done that, I'm wondering if this would have happened at all."

Emily stared at him, stunned. She didn't know what to think. Could Jacob not doing that have changed the course of things? Possibly. But, they were there now, and there was no undo button. She reached her hand out and placed it on Jacob's shoulder. "I can't condone what you did, but I think Elliot Pritchard and whomever was working with him was evil. And I've seen enough evil to know that there's not a whole lot a person can do to stop initial events from unfolding. We can only work with the cards dealt to us after we know the evil is there."

She looked at him a second longer, but he averted his eyes. "If you were still with the President right now, what would you be advising him, given everything you know?" Emily asked him.

Jacob sighed, "_If_ he's still alive, I'd advise him to complete the evacuation of people not showing symptoms to colder areas. And then, Scout, I'd tell him to gas the hell out of every place else, so we didn't have a bunch of lunatics walking around."

With that, Jacob pushed himself off the wall and turned to face her. "I'll take Penelope with me tomorrow to Barrow. We'll use the computers there and see if we can hack in and figure out what kind of vaccine trials were going on in Alabama."

* * *

><p>The next morning Serena got to work making more of the anti-viral. If she couldn't work on a vaccine at the moment, at least she could make more of that, in case people did start coming back to Barrow. Penelope was off with Jacob and Adam in Barrow, trying to find out what kind of vaccine trials were going on in Alabama, and Spencer was helping everyone else with projects around the community since he wasn't needed in the lab. Serena was glad; she enjoyed the solitude.<p>

After four days, everyone seemed to be settling in. Serena had put more pictures up around their house and it was starting to feel more comfortable in there. Caleb was content and loved his "job." Hannah came and collected him at eight o'clock every morning to go work in the greenhouses and barns. Just that morning, Serena had wondered out of her bedroom to find her parents in the kitchen. Her mom was at the stove cooking eggs and caribou sausage, and her dad was standing behind her, one arm around her waist, head resting on her shoulder. And they were smiling.

If she could erase the backdrop of the small kitchen, it was just like home.

Serena was interrupted from her thoughts when the door to the clinic opened and she saw Jack standing there with a smile on his face. "Come on. You've been living in this place the past few days. Shut it down. I need you the rest of the day."

"OK?" she responded questioningly. "I need ten minutes to get to a good stopping place."

Jack nodded. "Meet you at my house in fifteen minutes. And I mean that. Fifteen minutes, or I'm coming back and carrying you out of here," he said with a grin.

Serena smiled at him and nodded in affirmation. One thing that had definitely changed for the better in the past few days is that Jack Hotchner was back. The smiling, good-natured Jack.

She found Jack fifteen minutes later in his house with an elderly woman from the village. Her name was Annie, and she was the baker in town. Serena was surprised to see a container of regular flour on the kitchen counter, along with a large pile of what looked like dough. Caribou, fish and produce that they either grew or traded with other villages was plentiful and there was always enough to eat. But things like grains and coffee, things that this part of Alaska always had shipped in, were being rationed. Hannah was making plans for greenhouse expansions in all the boroughs so they could start making their own wheat flour by next winter. For now, though, everything like this was portioned out. On Sundays, each household would get a box with their weekly groceries that included breads baked by Annie and her daughter, a little coffee, and a small amount of sugar.

Jack grinned when she walked in the door. "It's Henry's birthday. We always do birthday celebrations. Annie made us some pizza dough, and she's going to help us make a cake. I told everyone to be here for dinner at 6:00, but not to come in this house before that."

Annie gave Serena a somewhat toothless grin that was warm and friendly and reached to pat Serena on the head. All of the kids in their group were a bit of a commodity in Anaktuvuk Pass. Most of the people with children left during the evacuations. Serena knew there were more kids in Barrow, but up here, there were a couple of teenagers around, but that was it. Lillian and Caleb were especially fawned over. Serena was fawned over, too, because the adults in the village knew what she was trying to accomplish, though they'd agreed to keep it a secret from the rest of the villages. As far as Barrow knew, Hannah wanted to set up a self-contained clinic in Anaktuvuk because they now had a doctor living there, and it was easier than flying ill or injured people into Barrow.

Serena smiled back at the kind woman and they got to work. They made the pizzas with homemade tomato sauce, goat cheese and caribou sausage. The cake was easy to make. Annie showed them how to make frosting. When the cake was done, Annie produced a surprise; a handful of chocolate chips. She used them to spell out "Happy Birthday," on the top of the cake. They put the pizzas in the oven and Annie got her coat on to leave. On her way out the door, she smiled at Jack and reached in her pocket, handing him a couple of birthday candles. Jack grinned and gave her a hug. "Thank you, Annie," he whispered.

A little before six, while the pizza was cooking and they were waiting for everyone to show up, Serena sighed. "Do you ever wonder if we'll get to go home?"

"I don't want to go home," said Jack firmly. "I like it here."

Serena raised her eyebrows, surprised. Here was fine, but it wasn't home. For as fast as her brain could work, she couldn't wrap her mind completely around the idea of a future that was in Anaktuvuk Pass.

"Look, Serena," Jack continued, "You've never dealt with wondering if Emily is going to walk in the door at the end of the day, and you haven't dealt with that with Derek in years. But Henry and I do, every day. This is the most relaxed I've ever been. I'm sad about what's happening elsewhere, but if I don't let myself think about that, just knowing that my dad is safe and is going to walk in this door at six o'clock for dinner is enough to make me want to stay put. I know that's selfish, but it's how I feel."

"I understand. That may not be enough forever, though," said Serena softly.

Jack put his hand on her shoulder. "I'm trying to be realistic. Let's say you come up with a vaccine, which I think you probably will. Or someone else will. Our parents shot their way out of the FBI building. We were kidnapped and had to kill people. There are some horrible men out there, and if they're still alive, they'll hate us. We may not stay here forever, but I don't think we're ever going to get to go home."

Serena blinked back tears, taking in the truth she hadn't let herself acknowledge. Jack took in her face and wrapped an arm around her. "I didn't tell you that to make you sad. I just want you to know that Henry and I, at least, are happy here for now. And I think most of the adults are okay, too. It's not home, but it's enough for now, and some things about it are better. I told you this because I don't want you killing yourself in a lab thinking that everyone is miserable and you have to come up with a vaccine so we can go home. You should work on that like you would any job. But, Serena, you're twelve, and you should still get to be twelve. You don't carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. I know everyone has told you that already, but I wanted to say it, too."

Serena put her arms around Jack and sobbed, finally letting loose another batch of tears that she'd been holding back. She didn't say anything, though. She could rationalize her way through every thought and feeling she was having, but sometimes she just needed to cry. When her tears subsided, Jack let her go and handed her a towel. "They should be here any minute. Why don't you go to the bathroom and wash up?" he said with a friendly smile.

Serena nodded and walked to the bathroom. She turned back in the doorway and gave Jack a small grin, "Thank you. It's good to have you the real you back."

* * *

><p>Dinner that night was happy and relaxed. Penelope returned from Barrow right after everyone else got there. Serena looked at her hopefully, but she just shook her head slightly. They didn't find what they were hoping for on the computers in Barrow. Serena decided not to let that disappointment ruin their evening. The disappointment was completely released when Penelope produced a soccer ball she must have gotten in Barrow from her backpack and tossed it to Henry. "Happy Birthday," she exclaimed with a smile.<p>

The adults and kids all gathered in kitchen and living room, some people sitting on the floor. They ate pizza and shared funny memories. They sang happy birthday to Henry, who was surprised by his cake. Serena couldn't help smiling at the atmosphere, of her family gathered closely with smiles on their faces. Maybe this could be an okay home for the future.

When they were leaving Hotch and Jack's house that evening, they ran into Hannah who was outside looking up in the sky. They followed her line of sight and then they heard the small buzzing sound.

"That stupid son of a bitch," she mutter.

They all stared at her. "The lights were on in the clinic and I knew you weren't in there, so I went to look. I found a note. _Took four vials of the anti-viral. Going to Fairbanks. Army base should have functioning computers and we can get what we need for Serena. It will take us awhile to figure out how to get in. We have maps and we'll be okay. Look for us in a week. Take care, Jacob and Adam."_

"Why would they do that? That's crazy!" exclaimed Derek.

Serena looked at her dad and then at her mom, who had tears in her eyes. "Jacob's trying to right a wrong he things he created."


	13. Chapter 13

_A/N - Sorry for the delay! Yesterday I was able to hide in my office at work and write A Shining Indiscretion. But life in a college library during final's week is unpredictable! Today was crazy. Most of my student workers had finals and two colleagues were sick. No time for writing! But here you go, and now I'm off to work on my smutty, naughty adventures in my other story. LOL! _

* * *

><p>That first Sunday when Jacob was gone, Serena woke up in the morning and found Emily on the couch, reading a tattered book. Serena smiled at the quiet house, at her dad's light snores coming from her parent's bedroom. She allowed herself the indulgence she'd missed the previous Sunday when they'd been making their way through Canada. She curled up on the couch against Emily's side.<p>

"What are you reading?" Serena asked quietly.

"Lord of the Flies," responded Emily, while putting her arm around Serena.

"Hmm," said Serena.

"What does that mean?" asked Emily with a grin.

Serena smiled. "I'm just wondering if there are any happier books in the library at the community center and why you chose that one?"

Emily looked at her seriously. "I'm just getting prepared for what might happen when your brother realizes that chocolate may be a thing of his past."

Serena and Emily both shared a quiet laugh at that.

"How are you doing, really, Serena?" asked Emily.

Serena burrowed deeper into her mom's side. "I'm okay. I'm worried about Jacob. He went off without talking to me, and I don't think he's going to find anything more useful than what I already know from Dr. Lamont's notes. No matter what Jacob did before, he saved us. I would have never seen you again without him."

Serena felt her mom's lips press against the top of her head. "I know, my sweet girl. And when he gets back, that's what we need to remind him of. Not going off to attempt things like he's attempting now."

"Do you think he'll make it back?" ask Serena quietly.

Several seconds passed before Emily resonded, "Yes. I think if anyone is capable of making it back, it's Jacob and Adam."

Serena was quiet after that, absorbing that statement and hoping it was fact. Then she took a deep breath, deciding what she was about to tell her mom wasn't a secret and wasn't breaking any promise she'd made to Henry and Jack so long ago. It wasn't a secret she was sharing; she had the sense that Will, JJ and Hotch all knew. "Henry and Jack are happy here. They feel like their parents are safe and they like it. They'd be happy to stay here forever. Jack thinks even if I find a cure, we won't ever be able to go home. Do you think that's true?"

Serena felt her mom's gentle hand stroke down her arm and squeeze her hand, but she didn't speak for what felt like forever. When she did, Serena could hear the tears in her mom's voice. "I think Virginia is a part of our past, my sweet, sweet Serena."

Serena's fast mind couldn't reconcile the truth of that statement that conflicted with her overriding sense of loss.

She wrapped her arm around Emily and cried. She wasn't sure when her dad woke up, but a couple of minutes later, she felt his weight on the couch on the other side of her. And then his arms were around both of them.

Serena knew none of this was her fault, and it was all beyond her control. That wasn't what was making her cry. It was that because she could remember so clearly and so well so much of everything. She could see in her mind how the grass in the front yard looked the first time her social worker drove her to Emily and Derek's house. She could see the windows at the front of the house that looked so warm and welcoming even from the outside. She remembered how the neighborhood looked from where she stood in the front yard. If she thought hard enough, she could feel exactly how the wood on the front door felt under her knuckles when her four year old self gave it a soft knock and yelled out, "Emily! Derek! I'm here!"

No matter how hard she tried, she'd never be able to get them back to the lives they once knew. She needed to accept that, but she didn't know how.

* * *

><p>Emily and JJ were in the community center with Hannah and a few other people, helping sort various food items into bins based on the number of people living in each house. It had been over a week since Jacob and Adam had left, and they hadn't heard a word from the two men. Everyone was concerned.<p>

Suddenly the Ham radio in the corner crackled and they heard Adam's voice. "We're just coming over the ridge," he said. "Hannah, are you there?"

Hannah ran to the radio. "I'm here."

"Get the truck. Meet me at the landing strip in twenty minutes with a few extra hands. Have Serena and Spencer get a space in the clinic cleaned and ready. I need an operating space."

Hannah's voice cracked, "How bad?"

"Well, he's still swearing at me, so that's something. Gunshot wound in the thigh. I'm less worried about the wound and more worried about infection.."

JJ ran to tell Serena and Spencer, and Emily went to grab Derek and Hotch and they made their way down to the landing strip where Hannah was already waiting in the truck.

It wasn't long before they could hear the whir of the small bush plane Adam and Jacob had taken, and the noise got louder as the plane approached.

Adam landed and everyone rushed to the door to help Jacob out of the passenger seat. There was a bloody bandage tied around his leg and he was sweating, but he kept repeating, "I'm fine. I'm fine." He swore like crazy as they moved him, though.

"The Army didn't like you on their computers?" asked Hannah.

"The whole base is either dead people or crazy people. The virus must have swept through there awhile ago. And, no, when we got caught, the lunatics did not like us there at all. This could have been much worse," responded Adam.

"That many sick people in Fairbanks?" asked Derek.

Adam looked at him and nodded slowly.

"It only takes one. One person who was in Georgia or around someone who traveled through there when this started could have wiped out the whole base by now with how fast this moves," gasped Jacob as they set him in the back of the truck.

"What about the rest of the city?" asked Hotch

Adam hit the top of the truck and they all braced themselves in the back as Hannah started it up and drove slowly down the street towards the clinic. He turned to look at them. "We didn't investigate."

Emily put her hand on Jacob's arm and stared at him as he laid there obviously in pain with his eyes closed. "When was he shot?" she asked.

"A day ago. We took the antiviral and Jacob wouldn't let us come back until he was sure it was well in our system."

Hannah pulled up in front of the clinic and they got Jacob inside. Jacob saw Serena standing there in the exam room and smiled. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a thumb drive. "Laptop in my house," Jacob whispered.

Serena blinked back tears and bent to kiss his forehead. "Thank you, Jacob."

* * *

><p>Adam stepped out of the exam room, drying his hands on a towel. "He'll be fine. He'll need to walk with a cane for awhile, which will be hard around here, but he'll be okay. I dosed him with a ton of antibiotics."<p>

"Thank you, Adam. We don't even know anything about you. How did you learn all of this?" asked Emily.

Adam smiled. "I was a medic in the Army. Hannah was a pilot. She taught me how to fly. We were in Iraq doing a tour many decades ago and this man approached us, asked if we wanted to get the hell out of there and do something more lucrative. Jacob had watched us for awhile. We were both game. I know what we might have done with Jacob seems abhorrent to you, but in a lot of ways it was more pure than what we were doing in the Army. I'm sure that's hard to understand. Jacob...he always tried to work for the good guys, even if what we were doing was illegal."

"It's actually not that hard to understand at all given everything we've seen over the years, and especially lately," said Hotch.

"Okay, next steps," said Hannah as she joined Jacob in the small waiting room. "We know this illness is as close as Fairbanks. It's not completely out of the question that people will access planes and try to get here. We need to clue Barrow in on what we're doing, at least about the antiviral, and set up quarantine facilities there. We need to set up guards on our airstrip and in Point Hope. Any planes will have to be directed to Barrow. They're the only place with facilities that could house any sort of quarantine."

"How much antiviral do we have, Serena?" asked Spencer.

"A little over a hundred doses. I can make more. About sixty doses a day," Serena responded. And then she took Derek's hand in hers and smiled. The group understood. There was finally a direction, something she could do to help instead of feeling helpless.

* * *

><p>Jacob's thumb drive didn't yield any new insights, much like Serena thought. Yes, Inovax had been doing Ebola vaccine trials in Alabama the previous August, along with various other places. But that vaccine didn't work on this virus. The thumb drive also contained every news article, every blog, every bit of information coming out of Alabama and South Dakota for a four month span. It was tons of information, and Serena and Spencer never gave up. They spent a few hours a day scrolling through all of that information, which amounted to months of reading. But they got no closer to a permanent vaccine as the weeks went by.<p>

They did make more antiviral and prepared Barrow for what might come. The team worked with the people in Barrow to set up a quarantine area in the jail there. But as October rolled into November and then December, no one flew in. They felt completely isolated, and they preferred it that way.

The downside was that they had absolutely no idea what was going on in the rest of the world. But they all coped with that in their own ways.

They started doing their Sunday dinners together again, rotating houses. Lillian started calling Penelope, "Penny," which no one could help smiling at every time she said it. And as they approached the darker months, when the sun wouldn't show itself for weeks on end, they found permanent roles in the community that started feeling like family.

When the sun showed itself for one brief hour on December eighth for the last time until March, they all felt like Anaktuvuk Pass was home. They were all resilient people. They were healthy and happy there, and thriving in their own ways.

* * *

><p>On December twenty-third, Emily returned to their house from the community center where she'd just finished running the book club she'd started. It was her wedding anniversary, and it made her sad in a lot of ways. For the past seven years, Fran had always taken the kids on their anniversary, and her and Derek always spent it at their home, in front of their fireplace.<p>

As she quickly made her way down the road in the frigid air she'd grown accustomed to, she noticed the windows of their house looked different. She smiled when she recognized the glowing candlelight through the glass. But she didn't expect what she saw when she opened the door: candles everywhere, and in the middle of the living room floor, Derek in a large aluminum tub full of water and bubbles.

He grinned when she opened the door and said, "You told me you missed baths."

Emily laughed. She couldn't help it. It was beautiful and wonderful and hysterical at the same time. She closed the front door and started stripping off her many layers of clothing. "Where are the kids?"

"Penelope's. Lillian was all over the idea of a sleepover."

Emily huffed out another laugh as she pulled her articles of clothing off and left them laying on the floor. Derek's eyes smoldered when she was completely naked and walked towards the tub. She put her leg in the tub gingerly and sighed at the feel of the hot water. She turned and felt Derek's hands gently run up her legs as she sank into the water and rested her back against his chest.

"Where did you get this contraption?" she asked.

His arms came around her and he kissed her neck. "I am still a man of many mysteries, Emily Morgan."

She felt him reaching for something outside of the tub and then one of his hands was in front of her again, holding a glass.

"Wine?" she asked.

He laughed and kissed her neck again. "Many mysteries, remember that."

"I will," she whispered.

"You know, I was thinking about it today as I was setting all of this up. Being married to you is the easiest, best thing in the world. No matter where we are, no matter the horrors we experience, no matter how precarious the rest of the world, we're always far better than okay when we're together."

Emily rested her head against his chest and turned to kiss his cheek. "We are. I love you."

"I love you, too. And I'm going to prove that to you over and over again tonight."

Emily laughed quietly again and took a sip of her wine. "Bring it."

* * *

><p>Christmas was simple in Anaktuvuk Pass, but still special. The community lit a huge, artificial tree in the barn and all gathered there on Christmas morning. There were a lot of homemade gifts for people, there was good food and laughter.<p>

One of the gifts given was a swing tied to the rafters in the barn. Kids and adults alike took turns on that swing. Serena was standing next to Penelope as she pushed a laughing Lillian on the swing.

"How long until the mama goats have their babies, Penny?" yelled Lillian as she went up and down on the swing.

"Not for a few more months, Lil," said Penelope.

"And then they'll have to have their medicine before I play with them?" asked Lillian.

Serena's eyes opened wide at those words, something clicking in her subconscious that she hadn't been able to put together yet with the bits of information gleaned from a five year old and the huge amount of data Jacob brought back with him from Fairbanks. She reached her hand out and grabbed the rope on the side of the swing, gently bringing it to a halt.

She crouched in front of Lillian. "You were visiting your Nana and Papa for your birthday when you got the shot from the different doctor?" she asked.

"No," said Lillian. "It was my birthday, but we were there to help Nana and Papa with the baby pigs, so they could get their medicine."

Serena's heartbeat accelerated. "What kind of medicine?"

"It was a spray. Papa said it was a new invention that was going to make things so much easier, but they had a lot of pigs and he needed help. The spray was everywhere," said Lillian.

Serena stood up and shouted, "Spencer!" as she ran towards him. "We need to go back to Jacob's and get on his laptop. We need to search for trial drugs for farms, specifically pigs. I think this might be it."

Spencer's eyes widened and then both of them were running from the barn towards Jacob's house and his computer.


End file.
